Present:
Alan Barefield, SRDC
Notie Landsford, Oklahoma State 
Hank Cothran, University of Florida
Greg Taylor, Texas A&M University
Rachel Welborn, SRDC
Michael Wilcox, University of Tennessee
Tony Windham, University of Arkansas
Cheryl Lloyd, North Carolina State University

• PLN CRD Committee Agenda Draft

• Additions

 

On Tuesday August 26, 2008

• Create nomination Committee:  Michael Wilcox moving to Chair. Need a vice-chair and secretary.
• Discussion of the future state report process

On Wednesday August 27, 2008

• Identifying Community Development faculty and areas of expertise (including research and Extension) from the region.

• Changes

 

On Wednesday August 27, 2008 (PM)

• Omitted -State Reports – Grouped by state or by question – this information needs to be provided to Nina Boston for inclusion on the eXtension wiki

• Moodle Training at PLN

 

• There are approximately three to five slots left as of 7/31/08
• Training costs $125/person to defray travel costs for Dr. Lippke

• Inventory of CD Faculty & Expertise

 

• Identify CD faculty and areas of expertise from the region – put together a list of those people. The SRDC will bring copies of the Consortium list. To be discussed further at the PLN meeting - see Item Ia.

• Business Retention and Expansion report

 

• Excellent training and a good mix of community development professionals and Extension professionals as participants.
• Evaluation was conducted with participants to gain feedback from the training and results will be compiled soon.
• There is great demand for the program and Extension needs to take the lead in keeping this program available - Texas and Tennessee have particularly voiced a need for the program.

• Upcoming Trainings & Conferences

 

• Health SERA – August 4-6, 2008, Houston, Texas

• About 21 registrants to attend  the meeting
• Part of the time together will be to work on adapting the Rural Health Institute material to an on-line course format.  Bobbi Clark is taking the lead on this project.  Not sure exactly what format will be used for the final product

 

• Public Deliberation – Coming soon

 

• Several groups are interested in working regionally from a public deliberation/civic engagement perspective around the topics of poverty and/or The New Hispanic South.
• If you are interested in this project, let SRDC know - we are currently building an interest list.

• SERA-37: The New Hispanic South – October 14-15, 2008, Raleigh, North Carolina

 

• Regional Rural Development Centers Joint Executive Council Meeting

• The meeting will take place August 11-12 in Washington DC.
• Each Center will bring Board members and other guests as they collectively seek to increase funding for CRD

 

• Galaxy

• As of 7/31/08 there are approximately 106 NACDEP members registered and approximately 50 participants that listed NACDEP as their secondary or tertiary affiliation. Since NACDEP is only about 400 members strong, this is a good representation.
• REED – a proposal to increase funding for rural community development is in process.  Bo will share more at PLN.
• As Galaxy approaches, we need to identify potential officer candidates from the Southern Region.

 

• NACDEP – Ed Jones

• A few weeks ago NACDEP officers held a retreat which focused on the development of a policy manual that would provide guidelines for the organization. A follow up phone call will take place on 8/8/08.
• The next NACDEP national conference will be held in Sand Diego from April 20-22, 2009 and focus on a theme of community sustainability (a tie in to JCEP programming). Recommendation was to select a month so people can plan on it. The organization counts on revenue from the conference for annual expenses and, therefore, if there is not an annual conference, dues would likely increase.
• NACDEP is currently seeking individuals to serve as Track Chairs, Reviewers and other key conference positions.

 

• State CRD Reports

• CRD does not have a state report form set up on the Wiki because the committee did not indicate interest.
• CRD committee members should follow report guidelines from 2007 and email to Rachel Welborn: rachelw@srdc.msstate.edu .
• The potential for reporting redundancy, given current CSREES reporting requirements, was discussed. This question was added to the PLN Agenda for further discussion (see Item Ia above)

 

• PLN Officer Team

• Brian Calhoun, from Virginia Tech, has changed positions and moved away from the Land-Grant System. As such, Michael Wilcox will move to Chair and we will need to nominate both a vice-chair and secretary (see Item Ia above)