I love Savannah. It’s one of my favorite places in the world.

It sounded like a great idea to me. I got Janet Rodekohr and Barry Jones to agree. And, we got ACE members at Fort Valley State University to sign on as partners. The next thing I knew, Janet and I were sashaying into the Toronto meeting wearing hooped skirts and inviting everyone to come on down to Savannah.

It’s time for one of you to consider hosting an ACE conference.

We have one proposal to host the 2013 ACE Centennial Conference in Indianapolis, Ind. Are there others who want to put forth a proposal for 2013?

Are there any who want to volunteer a proposal for the 2014 conference instead? Let us hear from you.

We will select the 2013 city and host institution during the ACE Fall Board Meeting Oct. 2-5. We would like to have proposals for the 2014 conference before the 2012 conference business meeting.

Toronto, Savannah, San Antonio, Quebec City, Albuquerque, Lake Tahoe, Traverse City, Des Moines, St. Louis, Denver, Annapolis … who will be next? Let us know where you would like to go and we can encourage the local members to volunteer!

This is an excellent opportunity to showcase your state or region and provide valuable service to fellow ACE members.

The Host Committee works closely with a meeting planner to handle conference logistics. Together they select conference dates, negotiate for the conference site, facilities and block of hotel rooms, assure availability of audio-video equipment and connectivity, identify and secure revenue sources, provide or arrange for transportation during the meeting if needed, hand registrations, and identify vendors and exhibitors.

While hosting a conference presents many challenges, ACE’s professional conference planner handles registration and many other details that make the host job easier. Additional support and guidance is available from previous years’ host organizations, ACE’s Professional Development Committee, the ACE Board, and ACE Headquarters.
The Host Committee appoints a representative to the conference Program Committee, but is not responsible for planning the conference program.

If you are interested in hosting the 2013 meeting, e-mail the following information to the ACE’s new interim executive director, Holly Young at ace.info@unh.edu by Oct. 1, 2011:
* Nominated site (city/state or city/province/country)
* Proposed month
* Site host (institution, organization, group of individuals, regional team)
* Brief explanation of why you think this site is a good one. Comment on possible lodging and meeting facilities, local program opportunities, connectivity, and attractions for spouses and families.
* Brief explanation of your organizational commitment (include unit, department, organizational or university support).
* Travel accessibility (airports, airlines, airport shuttles, trains and interstates)
* Person to contact for more information.

Faith Peppers, ACE President-Elect

Headquarters Update

I wanted to update all ACE members and friends of recent changes within our organization. On Thursday, June 9^th, the ACE Board of Directors terminated our headquarters contract with the Third Eye Group, effective immediately.

Holly Young, who has served as our treasurer for the past two and a half years, will serve as ACE interim executive director for the next year. She is in the process of setting up an 800 number and an email account for ACE. In the meantime, please direct any questions to her at 603-862-1564 / Fax: 603-862-1585 or e-mail: holly.young@unh.edu .

The ACE Board of Directors named Steve Dodrill as our new treasurer at a board meeting on May 19^th. He is on medical leave currently, and Robert Casler will serve as interim treasurer until Steve is back to work.

The ACE website and the JAC website are currently being revamped. Look for announcements concerning both of these sites in the next couple of weeks. Also new discussion forums will be available soon for SIGs and other ACE groups and committees.

Strategic Plan Feedback

http://www.acenetc.org/runtime/ACE_Strategic_Plan_2011.pdf

The ACE Strategic Plan is ready for feedback. The committee presented a forward-thinking future for our organization, with suggestions and ideas coming from current members. Now it is your turn to read through the plan, mull over the ideas, and tell us your thoughts. Send feedback directly to me at elainee@ksu.edu by Sept. 1. All of your suggestions will be compiled into a report and the ACE Board will work on an implementation plan at the Fall Board meeting in October.

And thanks once more…

It is truly an honor and a privilege to serve as president of ACE for the next year.

I want to personally thank the 2010-2011 ACE leadership team: Robert Casler, president; Steve Dodrill, past president; Faith Peppers, vice president; Holly Young, treasurer, and all of the board members: Suzanne Steel, Tom Knecht, Allison Eckhardt, Edwin Remsberg, Sandi Karstens, Doug Edlund, Brad Beckman, Becky Koch and Emily Eubanks. Doug and Brad are leaving the board, Becky transitions to vice president, Steve to treasurer, and Jennifer Alexander, Jason Ellis, Marci Hilt, Julie Douglas and Tracey Nelson all take a seat at the table to fill vacancies.

Here’s to a great year ahead.

 Elaine Edwards, president

P.S. And a tidbit for those of you wondering about all of our files and belongings housed at the former headquarters building. Robert Casler and I (along with our spouses, Carla and Mark) loaded everything into my suburban after the Denver meeting. The materials are in storage next to my office at Kansas State University. The board will review contents during the fall board meeting, probably relocate some to our permanent archives at the National Agricultural Library and the remainder awaiting determination of our future headquarters.

In a quick perusal of boxes, we noted old C&A entries, Xtension Chord t-shirts, books written by William Carnahan titled The Presidents of ACE, old membership directories, and much, much more.

Bill was born Jan. 17, 1940, near Cylinder, in Palo Alto County, the son of Reuben and Alice (Jacobson) Berkland. He graduated from Cylinder High School in 1958 and from Iowa State University in 1962 (bachelor’s degree) and 1964 (master’s degree). He married Melva Lafrenz on June 2, 1963, at Trinity Lutheran Church in Davenport.

For more of this story, click on or type the URL below:
http://www.amestrib.com/articles/2011/06/07/ames_tribune/obituaries/doc4dead41569f72768563124.txt

You’ll find the live broadcast schedule with links to the session details here:
http://www.acenetc.org/en/virtual/

These and select other sessions will also be recorded and available the acenetc.org website.

We want to thank Iowa State University Extension for sponsoring the live broadcasts and Ohio State University for providing Camtasia resources to record the additional sessions.

“If they implement just half of our suggestions, it will be a new day for ACE. I’m very proud of the work we’ve accomplished here. It could be a turning point for ACE. Thank you to Jeff and Tom and Steve for your leadership and to the other committee members for some great teamwork!”

You can find the report at:

Click to access ACE_Strategic_Plan_2011.pdf

Please read it carefully.

Robert Casler, ACE President

First, when we requested hotel proposals over a year ago, we were following the model of the St. Louis meeting — keeping the meeting short so people could get in and out in a few days. The restricted travel budgets for attendees played a primary role in planning for both a shorter meeting and for lower-than-normal attendance. By ending the meeting at noon the last day, participants would avoid an additional hotel night. Since then we have had proposals to add workshops and sessions, in part to meet the more diverse interests of a combined ACE/NETC audience, and also to again incorporate SIG and other meetings, based on feedback after last year’s conference. In addition, people just seem interested in spending extra time in Denver.

Combined with that we have the Boycott Arizona factor. We had originally settled on a facility in Arizona where we would have run of the place, very reasonable networking and food rates, and large rooms for everyone. Shortly after we officially chose that hotel — releasing the holds we had at other locations — the Board began to hear complaints from a number of members. Consequently they voted to support the Arizona boycott in reaction to the governor’s signing of the immigration bill SB 1070. An online poll of ACE members, combined with an informal poll of NETC attendees in Auburn, then determined Denver as our 2011 conference site. We had to negotiate with the Inverness to get us rooms at rates comparable to what they had originally offered. All they had available was over a weekend, since they are heavily used on weeknights.

Apart from the irritation factor, though, we expect everyone will be very pleased with this facility. Many of us have visited there over the past year and found everything to be excellent. It is in large part because of their high demand as a well run conference center that rooms have been in short supply.

Robert Casler, ACE President

This year’s new board members are Becky Koch, vice president; Jennifer Alexander, western region director-elect; Tracey Nelson, northeastern region director-elect; Julie Douglas, SIG director-elect; and Marci Hilt, retirees director-elect.

Becky Koch is the director of the Agriculture Communication department at North Dakota State University. She is NDSU’s point of contact to the Extension Disaster Education Network, and she served as 2006-08 EDEN chair. She has developed state and national educational materials related to flood preparedness and recovery, Ready Business and other disaster topics.

In ACE, Becky served as program chair for the 2003 ACE/NETC conference in Kansas City, as Distance Education and Instructional Design SIG chair, and on the professional development and conference continuity committees. She received the Distance Education and Instructional Design SIG Award of Excellence in 2008, the Pioneer Award in 1998 and numerous C&A awards, including the Outstanding Professional Skill Award for flood media work in 1998.

Jennifer Alexander is a publishing manager for the Department of Extension and Experiment Station Communications at Oregon State University. Before heading west, she worked in research communications for Pioneer Hi-Bred and as a science/technical editor at Kansas State University.

An ACE member since 2006, Jennifer belongs to the publishing, writing and academic programs SIGs and is a member of the “Journal of Applied Communications” editorial board. She served as ACE state representative for Kansas and was on the publicity committee for the ACE 2010 conference. She also is a member of the American Association for Agricultural Education.

Tracey B. Nelson, a publications distribution manager and graphic designer, has been with University of Maine Cooperative Extension for 20 years. She has spent the past 10 years in the communications office. She has been an ACE member since 2002, and most recently the ACE state representative for Maine. She was co-recipient of the 2005 ACE Silver award in the newsletter class in the publishing category for her work with the Eat Well newsletter.

Julie Douglas is the director of communications for the American Seed Trade Association. She joined ASTA in January 2010 and is working to represent more than 700 companies involved in seed production and distribution, plant breeding and related industries on a variety of issues such as patent expiration, co-existence, standardizing international phytosanitary requirements and setting policy at the local, state and national levels.

Prior to joining ASTA, Douglas served as the writer/editor of Ag Answers, a partnership of Purdue University and The Ohio State University that provides agricultural news and advice to help Indiana and Ohio farmers better manage their crops, livestock and marketplace transactions. Before joining the Purdue team, Douglas was an information writer for the Indiana State Department of Agriculture.

She is the current Media Relations SIG chair and a member of the Ag Relations Council, American Agricultural Editors Association, American Society of Association Executives, National Association of Farm Broadcasters, Washington Ag Communicators and Purdue Alumni Association.

Marci Hilt grew up on a small grain, dairy and poultry farm in Northwestern Ohio. A recovering reporter, she retired in June 2010 after spending 43 years working on communications issues for USDA. She claims, but has no actual proof, that she spent several years of her life attending meetings.

Some job highlights include: press secretary for agriculture at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative; press secretary for the Deputy Secretary of Agriculture; and project manager for the Federal Communicators Network’s Communicators Guide.

Hilt founded the ACE Media Relations SIG in the late 1980s; served as DC regional Director from 1998 to 2001; was a member of the ACE team that received the ACE Beacon Award in 2002; and received the ACE Media Relations Award of Excellence in 1989 and the ACE Diversity Award of Excellence in 2007.

Steve Dodrill, ACE Past President & Nominating Committee Chair

Copacetically, I happened to be the incoming Media Relations SIG chair and needed to work with the membership on annual professional development plans. With a lot of input from a lot of people, the SIG decided that basic train-the-media-relations-trainer was exactly what was needed . . . and Media Relations Made Easy was born.

Long story short . . . being the SIG chair gave me the opportunity to direct professional development for a year, and learn what I needed to do my job better back home. I got to work closely with a lot of really smart people in my field. The regular interaction, the working towards a common goal, the having fun while doing it, remains a highlight in my career.

So, I could tell you how much your SIG needs you (they do). But really, being a SIG leader means you can get all your successful, Type A, over achiever friends to tell you how they do it so well.

So – be selfish and get what you need. Volunteer to lead your SIG.

Suzanne Steel, ACE SIG Director

Next steps are to send out letters to the C&A participants announcing results along with the critiques and to determine the Outstanding Professional Skill award winners in each category.

If any of you have any questions, please contact me (elainee@ksu.edu) or Brandon at ACE Headquarters (info@aceweb.org).

Elaine Edwards, ACE President-elect and 2011 C&A Contest Chair