Minutes of The October Regularly Scheduled Meeting of
The Virginia Master
Gardener Association, Inc.
October 13, 2001
Rustburg, VA
Attendance
(Central Rappahannock) Ann Gorrell; (Charlotte) Anne Anderson; (Chesapeake) Kerry Goldmeyer; (Fauquier)Frank Reilly, Pat Reilly, Jim Scibek; (Gloucester) George Simpson, Mary Simpson; (Halifax) W.H. McCaleb, Brenda McDannald; (Hanover) Cheri Haggerty; (Lynchburg) Jerome Cooper, Betty Drinkard, Alice Ritchy-Lleir, Karen Sacasky, Susan Wingfield; (Montgomery) Susan McCrea; (Newport News) Gary Bill; (Northern Neck) Jinny Estell, Barbara Shultz; (Prince George) Cheryl Elmore; (Roanoke) Jerry Crumb, Shelby Snider; (Suffolk) Pauline Price: (Virginia Beach) Jessica O’Connor; (York) Sybil Przypek; (Roanoke ) Lynn Snider.
Call
to Order
President Pat Reilly called the meeting to order at 1002.
Introductions
Pat asked Karen Sacasky of the hosting unit to tell about
themselves. Karen welcomed everyone to Campbell County, introduced members
attending, and gave an overview of some of their programs.
Others present introduced themselves after the minutes were approved.
Minutes
The minutes of the August meeting were approved as corrected.
Treasurer’s
Report
Treasurer Sybil Przypek reported a total balance of $18,040.66. The Treasurer's report was accepted as presented. Sybil also passed out copies of the corrected budget.
President’s
Report
· Pat Reilly announced the president has a seat on Sarah Lineberger’s MG College advisory team. Other members of the team are Susie McCrea, Chuck Walters, Jim Scibek, Idanna Aaron, Alexandria Haselman, Sarah Lineberger, and agent Peter Warren and Dawn Alleman. Dates for the 2002 Master Gardener College are Thursday, June 20th, through Sunday, June 24th. In 2003 the International MG Conference will be in Cincinatti, OH, and Covington, KY, and is being held the third weekend in June (19th to 23rd). So that VA MG’s can attend this conference, we are looking at alternate dates for MG College
To increase agent involvement in MG College, it was suggested that we overlap with an agent in service meeting. Looks like we might be able to do this in 2003.
Evaluation comments from this year’s MG College indicated most people wanted to eliminate the day long stuff. Suggested an overview of programs and then you choose what you would like to get more info on.
To improve attendance, VMGA to produce a CD promoting MG College and have it available at the December VMGA board meeting.
Another suggestion was to have units from around the state provide the breaks and give the units surrounding Blacksburg a break. Registration fees would pay for the breaks.
VMGA will handle Brag Night. Prince William has volunteered to do the goody bag again for next year.
Dec. 6th or 7th will be our next meeting with Drs. Barrett and Umberger.
Pat has a copy of the 2003 International MG Conference video she will show at the Dec. meeting; and it will be available if any unit wants to borrow it.
COMMITTEE REPORTS
Education
Ann Gorrell announced our next training event “Damage Control” – how to deal with problems in the landscape. It will be held at the Albemarle County Office Building in Charlottesville on Saturday, November 17th from 0930 to 1530.
Guy Mussey will talk about step-by-step procedure for systematic trouble shooting. Also, someone will talk about misdiagnosed plant diseases, insect pests,, and animals that damage the landscape.
Another session is being planned for March on backyard habitats.
Newsletter
Maria Papadakis is still very sick. Still need someone to help Maria. Since no one has volunteered, Pat has proposed that we go to four times a year. In place of the other two issues, Pat suggested issuing a “Report of VMGA” similar to the one she sent out last month.
Membership
Gary Bill has resigned.
Julie Cochran has volunteered to take over the committee.
Communications
Members: Julie Cochran, Cheri Haggerty, Alice Nicolson, Janis Stone, Shelby Snyder, and Chair Frank Reilly.
Frank reported:
1.) Since the June Regularly Scheduled Meeting there have been 9682 visitors to VMGA.net.
2.) Since the August Regularly Scheduled Meeting, the web page has been updated on 22 separate occations.
3.) The Hort Updates provided by Chuck Hoysa, Fauquier County Agent have resumed, and are currently up to date – thanks to Julie Cochran and her high-speed access.
4.) The Hort Update is a very popular page. The August 1, Hort Update has been visited 930 times since it was posted, the August 15th update has been visited 571 times, and the September 15th update has been visited 571 times.
5.) Alice Nicholson is currently accepting changes to the calendar. This is also a very popular page, having been visited 471 times since the August Regularly Scheduled Meeting. However, we have not been receiving very many calendar updates. I know your units have activities, and this is advertising that is free for the asking. The more dates we have, the more people will visit the page, and perhaps your events. If you find submitting calendar updates to Alice too slow or cumbersome for your event, you are always free to place announcements on the VMGA.net forum page. You can find a link to that on the front page.
6.) Cheri Haggerty maintains the links page. If you have any interesting gardening links to add, send them to her. She’ll vet them, and edit the page accordingly. Currently we are reciprocally linked with MasterGardener.com. Visit the links page for information, and check out their site. It has dates and contact information on MGs from around the nation, and even a few international links.
7.) Membership applications are available on-line at the Membership page.
8.) Shelby Snyder has graciously volunteered to start a MG On-Line Photo album. Please send her scanned pictures via email, or even hard copies of pictures. She will scan them and get them back to you. We would love to see what MGs are doing around the state. Or if you have MGCollege pictures, we’d love to mount them as well.
9.) The Communications Committee is also preparing a CD Presentation of MG College. We plan to distribute this CD to each unit for advertising MG College, and so that folks can see what goes on there. If you have any MG College pictures please get them to Julie Cochran this month so we can include some of them in the presentation. You can contact Julie through the web page.
Unit
Support
Consists of Kerry Goldmeyer and Frank Reilly.
There has been no activity to report since the last regularly scheduled meeting. Many of the Units have not been keeping their Unit Representatives information current. Please convey your current Representative contact information to Jim Scibek. We plan to make this information available through the web site.
State
Fair
Cheri Haggerty reported a good turnout. Very few no shows. A lot of visitors to the MG booth.
Susan Wingfield passed out a draft for the VMGA Educational Endowment Fund (EEF). It was moved and accepted, with amendments, as a starting point. Pat challenged the committee to come up with a form by our December meeting.
Since Sarah could not be present, Pat Reilly reported.
1.) Fall newsletter should be out about October 20th.
2.) Since programming for various programs is the same, instead of teaching it with each module it will be separated out. You can take the programming one time and then the module specific training.
3.) A copy of the VCE MG volunteers report for 2000-2001 was passed out showing the unit, number of MG’s, total number of volunteer hours and a list of 2 or 3 educational programs conducted by VCE-MG’s.
Unfinished Business
Change in elections – staggered years for officers.
Karen Sacasky, Kerry Goldmeyer, and Frank Reilly agreed to be on a committee to look into term options.
Anyone else interested in serving on the committee please let an officer know. Pat asked for the committee to have suggestions ready for the June Board meeting.
Anyone having a suggestion for the nominating committee for candidates for office, please get in touch with Gary Bill, Karen Sacasky, Caroline Norrington, or Bud Gregory.
New business
Standardized test for MG’s? Different units have different exams. VMGA will suggest to Sarah that there be some state minimum developed, at least for the final exam. Or a bank of questions that could be utilized.
Announcements
The next board meeting is Saturday, 8 December, 2001, in Hanover.
The official meeting was adjourned at 1326.
Respectfully submitted,
A
Jim Scibek
Secretary
VMGA, Inc.