AUSTRALASlA PACIFIC EXTENSION NETWORK (Inc.)
A0029919P ABN: 81 760 842 687
Management Committee Teleconference MEETING #066
Thursday, September 28, 2006
(Re-scheduled from September 14, 2006 due to lack of quorum)
5pm (NZ), 3.00pm (EST), 2.30pm (SA/NT), 1.00 pm (WA)
M I N U T E S
1. Welcome: Neale Price (President) welcomed all to the teleconference. A revised agenda with 14 items had been circulated and Neale said he hoped to go through them all within an hour.
1.1. Present: Neale Price, Jess Jennings, Rosemary Currie, Derek Foster, Neels Botha, John James, Tracey Gianatti,
1.2. Apologies: Greg Owens, Amabel Fulton, Cynthia Mahoney and Chrissy King.
2. Record of Meeting
Minutes of the last meeting #065, taken as a true and correct record of the meetings.
Moved: Neale Price Seconded: Derek Foster
3. Matters arising
Goal 1: To be Recognised as the Peak Body
Management
4. New Regional Coordinators/AGM nominations: Roe reported that the notice of the AGM and a nomination form had gone out with ExtensionNet to all members as an insert. Regional coordinators needing nomination forms are Queensland (Derek’s secondment needs to be ratified), NSW, Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and New Zealand. Jess, Tracey and Neels who have indicated they wish to remain on the MC and Derek are asked to seek nomination from two members in their region in the first instance or MC members at fax the nomination form to Roe by COB, Tuesday October 17th, 2006. Neale said he will speak with Greg Cock about a SA nomination and Roe will chase a nomination from Victoria.
Action: Jess, Tracey, Neels, Derek, Neale, Roe
5. Australian Farm Business Management Network: AFBMN and APEN wish to go ahead with a joint publication. Roy Murray – Prior is the editor of the AFBM journal and Jess asked for suggestions of APEN members that he could approach to be joint editors with Roy. John Petheram, Tony Dunn, Chrissy King (communications role – an article in ExtensionNet re the journal), Jeff Coutts and Neels and Jess also expressed an interest. Jess was authorized by the meeting to contact these people, find suitable candidates and liaise with Roy to progress the issue. Action: Jess
6. APEN representative for RDS “Options for providers to integrate natural resource management (NRM) and production extension” project. RDS had requested an APEN representative to be on the steering committee of this project. A small amount of assistance would be available for travel but most contact would be by email and telephone. Neale asked whether APEN should be involved. There was agreement that this is a good project to be involved with and Derek said that the project was fundamental to progressing sustainable production. Neale commented that there is also a lot of synergy between the project and the extension handbook. It was agreed that Jess was an appropriate person to be involved and Jess was happy to accept this. It was agreed that we advise RDS that Jess Jennings is the APEN representative for this project and APEN is very happy to be involved and is looking forward to the project reports.
Action: Roe
7. Website hosting: John’s recommendation sent by email on September 13th suggested we split up what we unsuccessfully try to do with the current website as follows:
1. Basic web info… transition current web material to Ben Coutts’s new website
2. Event registration… use www.conferenceonline.com.au for registration and payment ($9.90 flat fee per person registering)
3. Conference proceedings… use The Regional Institute for refereeing and publishing
4. Web surveys… use Ben Coutts’s online survey (basically the same as Roger’s) or www.zoomerang.com
5. Email groups… keep using the Qld DPI Listserv (no cost)
6. Online groups (if we every feel the need to go down that path)… Yahoo groups http://au.groups.yahoo.com.
Our website would be a portal that would seamlessly take members to where they need to go. So for example, we’d have a page about an upcoming event and a link to register, which would take them to the ConferenceOnline site. Another link would take them to Roger’s site if they were contributing a paper etc.
John said he believed the $3168 quote to be reasonable and that Ben will do a professional job for us.
Neale said that he agreed with John’s ideas and asked for comment. Tracey commented that her recent experience with the publication service offered by TRI for the Agronomy Conference had been very disappointing and so felt it was a shame they seemed to be the only people offering such a service.
There being general agreement a motion was passed that:
“We accept Ben Coutts quote to host the APEN website and that we will make use of other specialists for event registration, web surveys, email groups, online groups and refereeing and publication”.
The next steps in this process will be:
1. A letter of acceptance to Ben Coutts and asking advice on what he needs to transfer the information from the current website. Roe will draft this. Action: Roe
2. Neale will discuss the decision with Roger and Claire at The Regional Institute and ask for a CD with all our information Action: Neale
8. APEN Forum 2007: Jess said that as there had been no further bids to host the 2007 Forum an idea had been put forward to use the forum to drive the process for the Extension Handbook. Jess suggested the structure below:
· A 1-2 day forum be held in mid-late 2007, probably either in Sydney or Canberra.
· An extension book publication be defined that reflects key topic areas and chapters, as has been defined by existing email group
· Key authors invited to be responsible for one chapter/key topics per author, with sub sections also their responsibility but writing able to be delegated
· Keys authors present their written chapter work at APEN Forum 2007, along with experiences of interest regarding the content and processes used (day 1)
· Chapters brought together towards the end of the Forum (eg day 2), to form a complete final draft book that is discussed and approved by all Forum participants, with critical changes able to be incorporated into chapters after the Forum (by responsible authors and coordinator).
· All participants contribute suggested marketing opportunities to sell book once published.
· Final draft of publication used to engage professional publisher as partner to APEN to edit, proof read, format, print and disseminate the book.
This was considered to be a good idea and Jess was authorised to speak to people with respect to the forum and handbook with the support of the MC.
Jess said that Jane Weatherley had offered help and he felt that Laura Schibrowski (Sydney Cluster Coordinator) and Amanda Mather (expressed interest in being involved in organising 2007 Forum) would be interested in being involved. Derek said he would also like to assist. The whole MC will be kept in the loop and Jess will update the entire group that have expressed interest in the handbook. Action: Jess
The second part of this proposal is necessary because Jess is a private consultant and does not have the support of a government department or large business to do this work on a volunteer basis. Sponsorship for the forum would be sort from funding bodies such as RIRDC, CSIRO who have indicated support for the handbook idea and may more readily sponsor a forum than a book. Registrations for the forum and subsequent book sales would also bring income to APEN. Jess asked for the MC to authorise payment of $5000 to him as the project coordinator/convenor to get the process going (seed funding).
Neale asked for comment on this idea. Neels, Tracey, Derek felt this would be a very worthwhile thing to do and if payment is necessary to get it started then that would be acceptable. John liked the idea of having a hand book but expressed concern about
· payment for organisation of an event that in the past had been done on a voluntary basis
· payment by APEN to the APEN Treasurer, Vice President, an APEN member
· changing the APEN culture – volunteerism to being paid for efforts
John felt this issue needs to be discussed on a face to face basis. It is a change in culture but that is not necessarily a bad thing.
Running an event is core APEN business – organised by a group of volunteers .
There was much discussion on –
The concept of APEN business that is open for people to apply to carry out on a paid basis
The need to manage things very carefully into the future
Identifying key projects to benefit members that APEN is willing to put money towards to achieve a high quality product
No member has been paid in the past – eg Roadshows and website editing (John then Roe)
Specifications or a descriptor of the role Jess would play
Send to members and ask for Expressions of Interest
Jess commented that he would be willing to proceed to an extent as a volunteer
$5000 to underwrite the process to getting the handbook up and running – Jess felt the forum would be leverage to get authors involved
The risk of insulting other forum organisers of the past
If no event does that mean the handbook will not go ahead?
Use seed money to go into a book – a link into the next forum
Still the problem of Jess as an MC member being paid
Discuss at the AGM – be open about it
Cultural change – some perceptions that need to be tested, the way its expressed in the culture is significant, legally – use corporate standards that boards use to avoid conflict of interest
Volunteer organisations are great but if you want quality you have to pay for it.
A way to progress maybe to find a sponsor that Jess could contract too – but then it is no longer an APEN product
Tracey, Neels, Derek and John all had to leave during the process of this discussion so it was not finalised and the agenda items were not completed because there was no longer a quorum of five members.
It was decided to finish the items by email. Neale suggested “flying minutes” that are sent to MC members with say two weeks to respond to or the response will be considered to be in the affirmative.
Meeting closed: 4.55pm
Items not covered from the agenda were:
1. Financial matters (Jess)
2. Follow up on Survey results (All)
3. Mentoring project and decision on future (John)
4. New survey on MC to be undertaken (Amabel)
5. Revised agenda and updated procedures (Neale)
Other business:
Next meeting: Teleconference AGM, Thursday November 16, 2006 2pm EST
Neale Price Rosemary Currie
APEN President Minutes Secretary
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