National Initiative for Consumer Horticulture (NICH)
Bi-Weekly Tuesday Conference Call Minutes
Tuesday, October 17, 2017
Attending: Pam, Debbie, Ellen, Casey, Clint, Suzi, Gail
- SCRI listening sessions – Floor
- https://nifa.usda.gov/nifalistens
- In-person sessions in Sacramento, Atlanta, Greenbelt (MD), Kansas City (MO)
- Who submitted abstracts?:
- Ellen (GA)
- Missy Gable (CA)
- Who is going?:
- Ellen plus industry representatives (GA),
- Missy and Gail (CA),
- Clint is tentative for Greenbelt (MD), perhaps Casey
- no one yet confirmed for Kansas City
- Who submitted abstracts?:
- Written Comments: accepted through December 1st
- We should work with our supporters, stakeholders, friends to submit written comments. Reaching out to our industry supporters, now – and making it easy for them to provide comment – is critical.
- Comments are searched, electronically. If they are the same, identical comment, they are counted as one.
- Comments should be unique.
- We can use an email blast to provide a sample – and then ask our stakeholders/friends to submit a unique comment.
- NICH should submit a written comment
- We should work with our supporters, stakeholders, friends to submit written comments. Reaching out to our industry supporters, now – and making it easy for them to provide comment – is critical.
- NICH Emails: Upcoming list – Suzi and Others: start the subject line of all NICH emails with ‘NICH’
- Casey and Suzi are not currently getting the NICH email blasts. They will follow up, to make sure they are subscribed, and/or to make sure the email is not going to spam. Casey will also check his database, to make sure emails are correct.
- Folks can sign up for the emails by visiting https://consumerhort.org/, and clicking on the ‘Connect with Us’ button that is under the large, white text that says ‘CONSUMER HORTICULTURE’
- At the very bottom of the page, there is a ‘Get in Touch with Us’ form. This generates an auto-email to Casey and Richie. Casey/Richie can then sign them up for the email list.
- There could be more clarity on what happens with the ‘Connect with Us’, ‘How Can I Help’ buttons, and the ‘Get in Touch with Us’ form, ‘Leave a Reply’ form.
- Remove the ‘Leave a Reply’
- Re-order ‘How Can I Help’ on the website
- To Do: Casey and Ellen will talk about how to reconfigure the buttons/forms on the website
- Timeline for future emails
- NICH SCRI Listening Sessions SENT
- Week 5) – invitation to supporters to provide written comments to NIFA (Gail)
- Week 7) economic survey
- Week 9) community/social committee objectives ranking
- Week 11) economic committee objectives ranking
- Week 13) environmental committee objectives ranking
- SCRI Pre-Proposal – Ellen and Gail are working on it, and a draft will soon be shared with the Executive Committee
- There was concern expressed about moving forward on a proposal before the industry has identified the research and extension priorities for consumer horticulture. The idea may be good, but it may not be the idea identified by industry as a high priority.
- Also, there is a need to focus on bringing the industry together and along with us.
- Position the industry with stakeholder groups, internal and external to the industry
- Identify priorities for research that will allow industry to move forward in positive ways
- Conversations and interviews with industry have been about engaging industry to identify these priorities
- The benefits of submitting now include getting comments from industry relevance reviewers (and scientific merit reviewers, if we go to stage two)
- Clarification that this is not a ‘NICH’ proposal. The proposal might be one that individual NICH members and committees might want to get behind, but it should not be NICH driven.
- The discussion sits between the differences between industry/academia. In academia, the call for grants comes out, and they are looking for something specific. In industry, we want to hear high priorities, and hope (or look for) there is a grant that will fund those needs.
- This discussion may also represent a ‘growing pain’ for our group. This is the first time that there are academic leaders and industry, working together on a coordinated effort.
- To Do: Casey and Debbie will conference offline, for further discussion
- New Items – Floor
- To Do: Debbie and Ellen will follow up on survey
- Review Action Items
- To Do: Casey and Ellen will talk about how to reconfigure the buttons/forms on the website
- Casey and Debbie will conference offline, for further discussion
- To Do: Debbie and Ellen will follow up on survey