Chris Sieverdes welcomed those participating in the call and called the meeting to order.

Call participants:

Chris Sieverdes	Charles Artis
Bonnie Teater	Joe McGilberry
Greg Taylor	Bo Beaulieu
Rick Maurer	Gae Broadwater
Ed Johns

Chris asked for corrections to the minutes of the October 31 conference call. None were offered. Ed moved and Charles seconded that the minutes be accepted.

1. Southern CRD Program Leaders Meeting: Chris asked the call participants for confirmation of the meeting dates and times for the mid-year meeting in Fort Worth, TX on January 31-February 1, 2001. It was agreed that the group would begin meeting at 10:00 a.m. local (Central) time on Wednesday, Jan 31, and conclude by 12:00 noon on Thursday, Feb 1. Bonnie will send instructions on how to register with the hotel and will ask for a response for those planning to attend. Those on the call planning to attend are Ed, Charles, Greg, Chris, Rick, Gae, Bonnie, Bo, and Joe.

2 & 3. Reports from federal leaders / PLC Update: Rick reported that the dates and location for the annual meeting are August 26-29, 2001 at the Savannah Riverfront Hilton. The theme of the conference will center on building better communities across disciplines.

4. Sustainable Development conference follow-up: Ed reported on activities of the regional committee working on ways to continue the work initiated in the October 2000 conference in Nashville. These include:

a) Develop a coherent sustainable development curriculum regardless of funding
b) Investigate funding possibilities
c) Encourage multi-state, sub-region efforts within the region for cross-state initiatives and to keep the state teams engaged

This will be a specific agenda item in Fort Worth. Additionally, Ed and Chris are drafting letters to the Directors & Administrators asking what kinds of work has taken place within their program since the Nashville conference.

5. Agenda Development for Fort Worth: Call participants supported the idea of using the minutes from the Puerto Rico meeting to identify action items for the agenda. We will pull out the things we need to be working on and use Fort Worth meeting to update committee and determine next steps.

Items that need to be highlighted are sustainable development, summer 2001 community development institute, and BR&E (business retention and expansion).

6. Other Items:

a)Bo and Bonnie updated the group on the Workforce Development effort. There is a conference in Tuskegee on December 11-12. The Department of Labor has provided a limited amount of financial support that will fund the development of a map highlight all the Workforce Investment areas in the Southern Region. Also, area data will be on the SRDC website in an area/multi-county basis for programs to use.

b)Chris asked the group for advice on how to proceed with the current situation regarding officers. Charles and others will try to determine interest and availability of individuals involved and the Committee will come to a resolution on this matter in Fort Worth.

Being no other business the meeting was adjourned at 10:35 a.m. EST.