I have felt it necessary to call an emergency meeting of the NBFTA general membership in regards to ‘Right to Practice’ legislation that was initiated by the Association of Registered Professional Foresters of New Brunswick. The meeting will be held Saturday, November 14th, at 9:00 AM  in Room 224, at the Maritime College of Forest Technology (most of you know it as MFRS), in Fredericton.

As a bit of a background for you, the NBFTA was involved in the RTP process for a number of years but after many meetings and much discussion the process was abandoned. This was due to lack of support and the government not wanting to invest the time or resources for a public bill.

In late 2008 until the present, RTP was revived by the ARPFNB, because their membership demanded it an an AGM. The new approach is to go forward with a private members bill and pay all of the associated costs out of pocket.

In the spring of 2009, at our AGM in Moncton, Jen Hacking, the Executive Director of the ARPFNB, asked if she could speak to the general membership at our AGM. We accepted and allowed her to speak. The result of her meeting was that Chris Finnamore and Gareth Davies agreed to be representatives for the NBFTA in all future RTP meetings.

As a result of feedback from those meetings, the NBFTA Executive has twice voted that we no longer be part of the process as we felt it was not in the best interest of New Brunswick Forest Technicians and Technologists.

So why am I calling this meeting? We will reveal the full transcript of events at the emergency meeting but in a nutshell, we have had verbal complaint(s) from our Membership that the Executive may have overstepped their authority in making this decision on behalf of the members. Also we have received a formal letter from John Kershaw, President of the APRFNB, where he has addressed our concerns. Whether we agree or not with his letter is up for debate.

The Executive works tirelessly on behalf of the Membership and we are always looking out for all of our best interests, so I take complaints seriously. The main reason that the NBFTA Executive voted against this is that we disagreed with the entire process to move forward with RTP. This is such an important issue because if the proposed legislation
becomes law, here are some of the significant changes that will occur:

- The NBFTA will merge with th ARPFNB and a new association will be formed.
- All Technicians and Technologists will have to join if you want to
practice forestry in New Brunswick.
- Membership dues will go up significantly as the cost of running the
new Association will increase dramatically.
- Our financial resources will be seriously depleted paying for legal
bills and getting the legislation passed through a Private Members Bill.
Any remaining funds will transfer to the new Association.

There are other concerns in the draft legislation that we would like to explain at the meeting and will prepare a presentation, followed by a question and answer period. At the end of our presentation any other member will be allowed to make a RTP-related presentation, followed by a Q & A. My only request is that you inform me at least 1 week prior to the meeting with your estimated time allotment.

No other issues will be on the agenda. At the end of the presentations, the general membership will vote and the decision will be final. I can not stress the importance of this meeting. We need a quorum to allow for
a vote, otherwise the decision on the Executive is final.

Attached you will find the most recent draft of the legislation and an OCR conversion of a letter that was mailed to me by ARPFNB President, John Kershaw. Please read it over before you attend so you are better informed. There may be some typos in the text below as it was created by computer software after scanning the document.

*note – I did not publish correspondence at this time as it is intended for Members viewing only. If you did not already receive a copy in your email (sent October 22, 2009), then that means that your email address on record is out of date or you did not provide us with one. I can be reached by sending an email to todd.macpherson@nbfta.org.

Thank you for your time,

Todd MacPherson
President NBFTA

Tara Croft
Canadian Woodlands Forum/Forum canadien des opérations forestières
20 Coupar Terrace, Truro NS B2N 5L3
Tel.: (902) 897-6961
Fax: (902) 897-6976

Plan to attend our Fall Meeting being held October 7-8 in Fredericton. Watch for more information in the coming weeks.

Mark your books! The CWF Spring Meeting will be held April 7 & 8, 2010 at the Ramada Plaza Crystal Palace in Moncton.

Click here to download/view agenda

The main item on the agenda will be the ‘Right to Practice’ draft legislation.

I hope to see you all there.

Regards,

Todd MacPherson

Find below links to the newsletter I’ve distributed to our membership. It has quite a bit of information that will be of interest to NBFTA members.

This month in the Forest Practitioner: An update of the progress made on drafting legislation for mandatory regulation of foresters and forest technologists in the province. A preview of proposed changes contained in the draft.

The Forest Practitioner (English) at http://arpfnb.ca///uploads//Website_Assets/_Newsletter_Summer_09.pdf

Without pictures & colour: http://arpfnb.ca///uploads//Website_Assets/Summer_09_newsletter_no_photos.pdf

En francais: http://arpfnb.ca///uploads//Website_Assets/Newsletter_Summer_09_French.pdf

Sans photos: http://arpfnb.ca///uploads//Website_Assets/Summer_09_newsletter_french,_no_photos.pdf

Jen Hacking, RPF

Executive Director/Directrice générale

1350 Regent St., Suite 221

Fredericton, NB

E3C 2G6

506-452-6933 tel

506-450-3128 fax

info@arpfnb.ca

www.arpfnb.ca

English Version

French Version

Click here to download meeting minutes

At the NBFTA AGM we were invited to take part in this process and reserved decision until we could have a formal meeting to discuss this. That meeting took place today, April 22, 2009, and the Executive has decided that we need to be included in this process in order to have our voice at the table.

The current position of the NBFTA, with respect to this legislation, is that we neither support or reject Right to Practice Legislation. That is something that the general membership will decide in the future. Two members of the Executive will be involved in the process, representing the best interests on the Association.

Please contact me if you have any questions or concerns.

Thanks

Todd MacPherson, CFT
President NBFTA

The webinar will cover the following topics and will provide a comprehensive update of SFI Program progress:

* Provide an overview of forest certification
* Provide an overview of the SFI® program including the draft revised SFI Standard
* Present and discuss SFI labels and Claims
* Summarize the key marketing initiatives of SFI in North America, including consumer & customer research to date
* Present technical and marketing resources to support your company and certification
* Q&A session

This webinar is free of charge.

Feel free to forward this notice to anyone who may be interested.

SFI Webinar Series

Sustainable Forestry Initiative Masthead

March 17, 2009

Sustainable Forestry Initiative® 101 Webinar
Friday, April 24, 2009
1:00 PM to 2:30 PM Eastern

The Sustainable Forestry Initiative(SFI) program represents a growing community of foresters, landowners, wood product and paper manufacturers, distributors and conservation organizations, among others, who are committed to improving forest practices globally. Over the past few months, we have had a growing interest among our program participants and certified companies for SFI Inc. to host a webinar to:

* Provide an overview of forest certification
* Provide an overview of the SFI® program including the draft revised SFI Standard
* Present and discuss SFI labels and Claims
* Summarize the key marketing initiatives of SFI in North America, including consumer & customer research to date
* Present technical and marketing resources to support your company and certification
* Q&A session

SFI Inc. President and CEO Kathy Abusow will lead this webinar and Q&A period on the basics of SFI. Attending this live, online session will enable participants to:

* explain the value of SFI to their customer and
* leverage the SFI brand into marketing plans.

The SFI 101 session – the first in a series of webinars coming in 2009. We invite you to please forward this invitation to all relevant staff, sales teams and training coordinators in your organization, and RSVP individually to lisa.fox@sfiprogram.org by April 10th, 2009. The webinar access information is found below.

Future topics in SFI Inc.’s 2009 webinar series will include Green Building, labels & claims, and the revised SFI Standard, among others. Please send suggestions for future webinar topics to karen.brandt@sfiprogram.org.

Webinar Access Details:

Topic: SFI 101
Date: Friday, April 24, 2009
Time: 1:00 pm, Eastern Daylight Time (GMT -04:00, New York)
Meeting number: 598 974 417
Meeting password: (This meeting does not require a password.)

Web conference link:

Please click the link below to see more information, or to join the meeting.

https://intercall.webex.com/intercall/j.php?ED=114359752&UID=0

Audio conference information: Provide your phone number when you join the meeting to receive a call back. Alternatively, you can call:
Call-in toll-free number: 1-866-5536252
Call-in number: 1-650-2514440
Conference Code: 8556904433

We look forward to hearing from you!

Sincerely,

Karen Brandt
Vice-President, Market Affairs
SFI Inc.

Contact Info and RSVP to:

Lisa Fox
Coordinator, Marketing

SFI Inc.

Lisa.Fox@sfiprogram.org

left to right: Chris Finnamore, NBFTA Past President, Brandon Hicks, and Todd MacPherson, NBFTA President

This award is presented annually to 1st Year MCFT students who are residents of New Brunswick. To learn more about the criteria for this award please click here.

Again, congratulations to Brandon.