Marshall and Hutchinson Regional Office Blog

Good Afternoon: Here is the schedule for the next round of County Extension Committee meetings:

June 30 7:00 p.m. Big Stone
July 11 12:00 noon Kandiyohi
July 11 5:00 p.m. Chippewa
July 11 7:30 p.m. Lincoln
July 14 7:00 p.m. Lyon
July 18 7:00 p.m. Renville
July 19 4:30 p.m. Lac qui Parle
July 21 4:00 p.m. Redwood
July 21 7:00 p.m. Yellow Medicine
July 27 5:30 p.m. Swift

One of the agenda items will be the 2012 budget proposals which I will discuss with each of you at our upcoming County staff meetings.

Have a good week

Bob

Posted by byrne007 at 9:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Good Morning: I hope you have had a good week. A few things to share today:

County staff meetings: In late May or early June I would like to attend a staff meeting in each county. One of the agenda items will be development of the 2012 budget proposals to be considered by the County Extension Committee. I ask that County Support staff check calendars for your staff as well as my calendar to find possible meeting dates and times. Note that I can attend several in a day if distance between staff meetings makes sense.

2012 Budget Preparation: In preparation for the budget development, please send me an update on specific county budget decisions. For example, if the 2012 salary for county employees has been determined by a multi-year collective bargaining agreement; if this is a negotiation year; if the county has implemented a salary freeze; if there are planned furloughs in the county; etc. Also, think about any equipment needs or changes (such as expiration of a copier lease agreement).

Google Apps training: You have all received information about the upcoming Google apps trainings. Note that an afternoon session has been added for the Morris location.

Questions on sending information from others to Extension participant lists. Occasionally we receive requests for addresses or electronic mailing lists from individuals or organizations. As a reminder, those addresses and lists are for use by the University of Minnesota Extension, and not to be given to outside organizations. Likewise, it is not appropriate to utilize the University distribution system to forward or send private information to program participant lists.

Have a good weekend,

Bob

Posted by byrne007 at 5:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Good Morning: Recently you received a message from Karen Mathys regarding the upcoming Google Apps trainings. The message is copied below with the current dates and locations of the trainings. While this is an optional training, I would encourage your particpation at a date and location that is convenient to your schedule and location.

I am pleased to invite you to attend a hands-on Google Docs and Google Sites workshop. This 3.5 hour hands-on workshop provides a tour of the applications available within the University's Google Apps environment. This workshop will demonstrate how easy it is to collaborate on a project with different people, and how the Google Docs applications are designed to facilitate this goal. We will also use Google Sites to create a collaborative place to share documents, task lists, discussions, announcements and show you how to control who has access to the site. This is the same workshop that is regularly offered by the University Technology Training Center on the Twin Cities campus. As a prerequisite, you should be familiar with Gmail and Google Calendar. All Extension employees are invited to attend.

Topics include:
• collaboratively authoring documents with Google Docs
• using Google forms to gather information
• chatting with individuals and groups while editing documents together
• using a website in Google Sites to organize a collaborative project

Dates, Times, Location and Registration:

The workshop is free but there is a 20-24 person limit so registration is required. Please only register for a workshop if you know you can attend. To register for a workshop, click a link below:
May 16, 1:00 pm - 4:30 pm: Southwest Minnesota State University in Marshall, MN - Register

May 17, 9:00 am - 12:30 pm: Minnesota West, Worthington, MN - Register
May 19, 9:00 am - 12:00 pm: Rochester Heinz Center (full)

May 19, 1:00 pm - 4:30 pm: Rochester Heinz Center - Register
May 25, 9:00 am - 12:30 pm: South Central College Mankato - Register

June 8, 1:00 pm - 4:30 pm: Minnesota State University Moorhead - Register

June 9, 9:00 am - 12:30 pm: University of Minnesota Morris - Register

June 22 9:00 am - 12:30 pm: Central Lakes College, Brainerd - Register

June 22, 1:00 pm - 4:30 pm: Central Lakes College, Brainerd - Register

July (date TBD) - Cloquet Forestry Center

Questions? Contact Karen Matthes (612) 624-4213.

Posted by byrne007 at 3:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)