Good Morning, I hope all of you are looking forward to a great New Year. I know I am looking forward to working with all of you in my role as Director of Field Operations.
In this role, I am committed to doing my best to support you as Regional Directors as you provide the operational support for programming in your region. There will be changes, but we should be able to manage those changes to benefit the organization, our staff and the people we serve.
One of my goals is to have regular communications with the RD group. That communication starts today with this blog. I have chosen to use a blog format because it is less formal, more conversational, easier to reference previous messages and allows interaction through comment posting. This blog is internal to the RD group, so respect the confidentiality of some of the information included in this blog.
So, there are a few things to share today:
New RD start dates: Kim Boyce, Riaz Aziz and Susanne Hinrichs will begin their Regional Director roles on January 9. Darrell Cox will start January 12.
Willmar Office: The Extension Regional Office in the Mid Central Research and Outreach Center will open January 9. Furniture is being installed this week. The mailing address will be 1802 18th St NE, Willmar, and the main phone number will be 320 235 0726. In addition to Darrell Cox, other staff at the Regional Office will be Administrative Support Mary Jo Fox and Extension Educators Grant Crawford and Jodi DeJung Hughes. Other Educator assignments have been proposed but have not yet been approved by the Dean.
RD Monthly call: This month's call will be January 13th at 9:00 a.m. Please send any agenda items to Karla.
Extension Legislative Action Day: Last month (December 2) we received an e-mail with the agenda and logistics for the Extension Legislative Action Day. The session begins with lunch on February 1 and ends with lunch on February 2. Note that Gwen requests participants rsvp by January 5.
RD "Face to Face" meeting: As we previously discussed, we will have a RD meeting prior to the Extension Legislative Action Day. This RD meeting will begin at 1:00 p.m. on January 31 and end prior to lunch on February 1. I am looking for a few volunteers to help set the agenda and location for this meeting. If you want to volunteer, please send me a quick e-mail.
Calendar Sharing: If you have not done so already, please give me viewing privileges to your calendars. I will also provide you the same.
RD List Serve: The RD list serve is in transition, so for now, avoid using the list serve until it is revised.
Medical Leave: Luann Hiniker began medical leave last week following orthopedic surgery. LuAnn will be on leave for several weeks. Nathan and I will meet with the Rochester staff this week to go over RD coverage issues during this leave.
Barb Grossman: Beginning today, Barb Grossman will begin her position as Program Initiative Coordinator. Barb will continue to office at UROC. In this role, she will be part of EFANS and will report to Katherine Waters, Program Leader, Food Systems.
Have a great week,
Bob
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