News & Notes January 2008

PACD Committee Chairs Appointed
Committee Positions Available

The PACD Executive Board appointed Committee Chairs to the six PACD Committees. The following Chairs will serve for the next term ending on December 31, 2009.

Conservation Committee Chair
Robert Ritchey, Cambria Conservation District
District Employees Committee Chair
Don McNutt, Lancaster Conservation District
Education and Outreach Committee Chair
Jaci Lucas, Northumberland Conservation District
Legislative Committee Chair
Ron Rohall, Westmoreland Conservation District
Operations Committee Chair
Dr. Irvil Kear, Schuylkill Conservation District
Ways and Means Committee Chair
Patricia Powley, Dauphin Conservation District

The following committees have vacancies for district staff and/or district directors or associate directors.

District staff vacancies:

• Legislative (three openings)
  
• Operations (three openings)
  
• Ways and Means (four openings)

District Directors or Associate Directors:

• District Employees (three openings)
  
• Education and Outreach (three openings)
  
• Legislative (one opening)
  
• Operations (two openings)
  
• Ways and Means (one opening)

If you are interested in serving on any of the committees, you can download and submit a PACD Committee Interest/Nomination Form at http://www.pacd.org/about/committeeform.htm. Please contact Molly Burns with any questions at 717-238-7223 or molly-burns@pacd.org.

Planning for Next Year's Watershed Specialist Training Already!

There has been much discussion lately about the success of this past year's Annual Watershed Specialist Training. Evaluations revealed that, nearly without exception, attendees found the event to be extremely useful and relevant to their work. In a recent conference call with the Training's planning committee, the following excerpted accolades and suggestions were offered for next year:

What went right?

• Bringing in outside speakers (it was worth it to spend money for travel & lodging)
  
• Good presenters / good information
  
• Big picture presentations / discussions
  
• Pace of event - time to take in information and time to network
  
• Length of sessions (1.5 hours)
  
• Two days for everyone and 1 extra day for new watershed specialists
  
• Presentations by more experienced watershed specialists
  

Overall, the positive feedback can be summarized by these three representative comments:

• I got recharged from the conference to go back and do a good job.
  
• I thought speakers were great this year. Breakout sessions' topics were great also - hard to chose between!
  
• Most of the presentations were interesting and thought provoking. All presentations contained useful information that will be beneficial to me for future projects.

Suggestions for next year:

• More opportunities for interaction between new watershed specialists and veterans
  
• More interactive sessions in general and schedule regional field tour days in conjunction with the event
  
• While the "big picture" stuff played a more prominent role this year, do even more of it next year by having a roundtable or panel discussion on "What is our direction on watersheds? What does it mean to have 'continual' commitment to the Watershed Specialists initiative?"
  
• Include a "Facilitator" training that covers Strategic Planning, Visioning, Plan Development, Stewardship Planning that can be used by watershed specialists, especially with watershed groups
  
• Include a session with local officials on how to work with townships/ municipalities/ planning entities/ commissioners
  
• Include a session on how to "sell what we do," including keeping legislators aware of successes - aimed at investing legislators in what we do in order to get priorities accomplished and secure more funding
  

If you have comments or suggestions that you would like to have be taken into consideration for next year's Training, please contact Steve Lathrop of DEP at slathrop@state.pa.us or Kathleen Banski at kathleen-banski@pacd.org.

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