May 3rd Conference Call

Denver Meeting 30 June – July 1 (Casey)
Botanic Garden – Rooms reserved all day on Jun 30th and half day on July 1st.
- We can talk to the Botanic Garden about our food needs, next.
Hotel information forthcoming
- Warwick hotel contract secured (30 room nights; $179 per night): reservation deadline of June 3rd.
Late Night arrivals on 29th/informal gathering (nothing major): steering committee dinner on June 29th or should we have a general reception on June 29th?
- Rick, Margaret, Bob Kellam will not be able to attend NICH meeting in June.
Transportation costs (Shannon): information forthcoming
- No transportation on the 29th, unless we have a reception on the 29th.
- Transportation on the 30th: roundtrip out to the Botanic Garden, and then back (full day)
- Transportation on 1st of July: one trip out to the Botanic Garden, and one trip back (half day)
- Does the Warwick have a shuttle? If so, could we look the Warwick as an alternative?
- Action Items: Shannon will call the Warwick and ask about transportation; will follow up on transportation options.

Program Committee Update (Rusty, Ellen, Lucy)
Survey Results – Update: not many responses (~12), and seems like we may be recruiting from within our group. Not many responses from outside of our group.
- Action Items: Lucy will resend the survey, with a deadline of May 13th to respond.
- Action Items: Steering committee should fill out the survey, as well.
- In the survey note ~ send out information about the Warwick hotel.
- Denver has a train to plane service at Union Station (http://www.rtd-denver.com/a-line.shtml). The Warwick is ~ 1 mile from Union Station.
Should we put the organizational structure on website? At this point, Casey suggests holding off on putting the organization structure on the website.
Mission – Vision – Goals Committee Update
- Updated goals and objectives were included on the survey. They are not currently posted on the website.
  - Decision Made: we will put the new goals and objectives on the website.
- If survey closes on May 13th, is there enough time for the writing committee to meet, prior to our Denver meeting?
- Should mission and vision be ready to be presented at Denver meeting? Writing committee was given permission to take a renewed look at mission and vision. But, we will not change the mission and vision (on the website), for now.

Sponsorship
Shannon had talked to a local foundation about sponsoring NICH activities, but they declined, at this time.

Identifying and Working with Like-Minded Groups (Margaret)
There are other efforts that are related to what NICH is doing, and many of them are commercially-oriented. There may be a way of joining forces.

We need Private Industry members! (Casey)
Casey has meeting scheduled with Suzie McCoy (from Garden Media Group) in the next few weeks, and will broach the topic. Suzie may have a better idea about what type of campaign we can use to engage them.
Timing: spring is a bad time of year to engage nursery production folks. It’s their busiest time of year.
Our efforts to engage industry should be focused on long term involvement, rather than short-term funding.
Other efforts focused on getting funding to solve problems that affect industries. Our efforts seem one or more steps away from what an industry person might be looking for.
Another challenge is that we don’t have enough industry involvement for them to even say what their needs are.
Other folks who might be involved: Charlie Hall (gardening impact data) or other researchers who work in consumer hort.
Ellen has a meeting with a marketing professional at Bonnie Plants to discuss NICH.
We need to develop a list of industry talking points, that can be linked back to our goals.
- Action Items: Margaret will take the first stab at writing industry talking points, in collaboration with American Hort (Jill Callaborough?). Casey will assist, perhaps putting draft past Suzie McCoy. Approach will be to take NICH goals, and put them into industry-specific language.

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