CAPACITY BUILDING

• Under a grant from the Department of Homeland Security to Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Fanning will work with the Georgia Department of Agriculture and the Georgia Emergency Management Agency to facilitate the development of seven State Agricultural Response Teams (SARTS) charged with responding to major events within the state, including terrorism, agriculture-related health incidents and natural disasters. The project will include training the team leaders in the National Incident Management System, and helping to develop strategic plans for each team. Langford D. Holbrook, Danny Bivins, and Louise Hill, and others, will be working on this project.

• Raye Rawls conducted a four day General/Civil Mediation Training Course providing foundations in interest-based negotiation, cooperative conflict resolution, communication skills, and effective agreement writing. This course is the first step to qualify as a registered mediator through the Georgia Supreme Court’s Commission on Dispute Resolution. Jim Maloney, Delene Porter, and PS&O faculty Jennifer Frum and Karen Payne also attended.

EXPLORATION

• Leigh Askew facilitated seven town hall meetings for the Georgia Water Council in January. Held in Albany, Gainesville, Cumming, Columbus, Athens, Brunswick and Rome, the meetings provided an opportunity for hundreds of Georgians to learn more about the Water Council’s proposed management objectives for the Statewide Water Management Plan, make comments and ask questions. Georgia Public Broadcasting filmed the meeting held in Athens, and it can be viewed online through the Water Council’s website, http://www.georgiawatercouncil.org/.

• Danny Bivins and Langford Holbrook began the City of Barnesville Community Visioning Process, spending two days in the community touring and gathering input through one on one interviews and conducting focus groups with elected officials, chamber members, city employees, Gordon College representatives and students, religious leaders, law enforcement, county school officials, and students. Each Visioning Committee Member will be taking photographs of what is good and what is not so good to develop visual input, and a community questionnaire is in the process of being constructed.

IMPLEMENTATION

• Partners for a Prosperous Athens released “The PPA Story”, providing an overview of the work and thought process behind the 155 recommendations created by thousands within the Athens community. Using the Story and recommendations, at its February retreat the PPA Steering Committee will develop strategies to move forward to address the underlying causes of Athens’ poverty as it develops its final recommendations and plan for implementation. “The PPA Story” can be viewed at www.prosperousathens.org PPA is being supported by Joe Whorton, Jim Geiser, Delene Porter and Sandy Christopher.

• Bill Russell collaborated with the Georgia Cities Foundation and the SBDC to assist new entrepreneurs in obtaining financing to purchase, make improvements, and build-out a restaurant (the Country Moose) in one of the four buildings owned by the DDA in Zebulon. This will be a $400,000 dollar investment and employ 10 people.