On behalf of PLT:

• REMINDERS about TimeClock Plus (TCP)
• PLT notes – Bill Nobles & Jan Carroll
  • 4-H – Jean Glowacki
  • Energy – Cary Weiner
  • Food Systems – Becca Jablonski
  • Livestock & Range – Todd Hagenbuch
  • Nutrition, Food Safety & Health – Jessica Clifford

REMINDERS about TimeClock Plus (TCP)

All sick and annual leave requests are submitted electronically directly to your supervisor. Please be sure to enter your sick and annual leave requests by the 5^th of the following month. If you do not take any sick or annual leave in the month, you do need to indicate in TCP, on the last day of the month, that you took no sick or annual leave. Do this rather than forgoing reporting. To report zero leave, simply add a request on the last day of the month, enter a start time, input “0” hours, select any leave code, and note “No annual and sick leave taken this month” in the description type. This informs your supervisor and CSU HR that no leave was taken that month.

If you have a Special Leave Request (parental leave, jury duty, bereavement leave, military leave, etc.), email your region’s program assistant within five business days of the leave requested and include the following information:

• Date(s)
• Type of leave requested
• Number of hours requested/taken

As a supervisor,

• We suggest you put a weekly REMINDER on your calendar to approve pending time off requests and required work hour approvals. Go into TCP on a regular basis! All approval of salaried employees time/leave needs to be approved by the 10^th of the following month by their supervisor.
• If you are going to be out of the office for an extended period of time, please contact your region’s program assistant and ask that they help in approving items in your absence.
• Remind your Bi-Weekly Hourly employees that time must be input (and approved by you) by TUESDAY following the end of the pay period.

The region program assistants are:

• Front Range Region – Sonjia Graham, graham@colostate.edu
• Peaks and Plains Region – Joan Jordan, jordan@colostate.edu
• Western Region – Kellie Clark, clark@colostate.edu

The EFNEP (department #4060) contact is Cindy Standley, cindy.standley@colostate.edu.

PLT notes – Bill Nobles & Jan Carroll

PLT met on Zoom on Wednesday, August 23.  The Forum draft schedule is available.  PRU leaders are responsible for planning their sessions.  They will provide information to Judy Barth ASAP (deadline September 6) for Forum information mailing.  In addition to Forum planning, the agenda included a briefing from Jana about the new NIFA effort certification requirements; exploration of the impact statement/reporting course now available online; and setting the next PLT meeting for 9 – noon on Tuesday, November 14.

4-H – Jean Glowacki

• Volunteer Specialist search failed, it has been re-opened.
• STEM/K-12 Specialist search is moving forward. Interviews are scheduled for 9/13 & 9/14.
• Foundation Director search committee is being formed, position description is being revised.
• Ag Day with 4-H is September 9^th. New this year is 4-H Village. Agents will be leading STEM activities for all ages from 9:30-12:30. Game tickets are special priced at $20 and available through a link on our website. 4-H will be featured throughout the game and the truck raffle ticket will be drawn.
• Pedal the Plains is 9/15 9/17 in Kersey, Keenesburg and Brush. 4-H youth, volunteers and agents will be promoting and featuring 4-H all along the way.
• The national Western Region Volunteer Specialists have developed a new 4-H Youth Development Volunteer Orientation. The 4 modules will be ready for business in September. All volunteers new, and currently enrolled will be required to complete the modules: Volunteer Roles and Relationships, You Can Create a Safe and Inclusive Environment, You Can Promote Positive Youth Development, You Can Help Young People Learn By Doing.
• We are really excited about this volunteer development opportunity, Other areas around the country will be purchasing the modules from the Western Region. We plan to develop volunteer training modules with these funds.
• Lots of time and energy devoted to 4-H Youth Development at the County Fairs and now moving into State Fair. Many county agents contribute an incredible amount of time providing leadership for these events and keeping the focus on positive youth development.
• Forum plans: work team time to develop strategic planning for Colorado 4-H Youth Development Program and county specific strategies, using the National 4-H Strategic Plan as the foundation.
• 4-H Agent Handbook update and new components; professional development to focus on competencies identified by County Agents at MegaMeeting, using 4-H PRKC; tie-in to the Mental Health training.

Energy – Cary Weiner

• Our ‘Know Before You Go (Solar)’ workshop series has been very successful. To date we have run 7 workshops and reached 150 participants. Four more workshops are scheduled for the fall, with more likely to be added soon.
• We have become formal facilitators in Xcel’s ‘Partners in Energy’ program in Erie, adding to our facilitator role for PiE in Englewood and Littleton.
• One-stop-shop energy kits have been delivered to ~30 counties. These kits can be borrowed or used for educational demonstrations, 4-H lesson plans, and home energy audits.
• We will be holding a 1-day mini-retreat in Denver on October 12. We will use the morning to plan and the afternoon to visit the 2017 Solar Decathlon. Contact Cary Weiner if you are interested in joining and haven’t yet RSVP’d.
• The PRU’s Forum meeting will be held from 9:30-11am on Tuesday, 10/24. Anyone is welcome.

Food Systems – Becca Jablonski

The CSU Food Systems Extension PRU met jointly with the Community Development PRU June 1-2 in Glenwood Springs. The focus of the meeting was to determine if there are opportunities to collaborate in key areas/programs within the next year to support the PRU. Based on great discussions over the two-day retreat, we made a decision to focus our PRU on two primary activities in 2017/2018 to facilitate enhanced collaboration:

• Curriculum to support Food and Beverage Industry Business Development. The primary goal is to develop curriculum that could work for the cottage food industry as well as larger businesses. We envision the program will be similar to the Building Farmers program, but aimed post farmgate;
• Professional development marketing tour for food systems PRU team members, focused on enhancing team members’ networks and understanding of market opportunities. This tour will take place on February 22-23, 2018.

To further these priorities, much of our time at Forum will be spent discussing and planning these activities. In addition, we will have one hour to meet jointly with the Nutrition, Food Safety, and Health PRU to learn about new poultry processing regulation and the partnership with CDA Dept. of Regulation, CSU Quality Meats lab and CSU Extension to develop educational materials for consumers and producers.  This discussion will be facilitated by Dr. Ragan Adams.

A special thank you to Jeff Pieper for arranging a great tour as part of the retreat, to Dr. Jeni Cross from the Department of Sociology for providing a very thoughtful keynote address, and to Kurt Jones, Martha Sullins, Becca Jablonski, Libby Christensen, Annette Shipley, and Jeff Pieper for serving on the retreat planning committee.

CSU Extension continues to collaborate with the FDA and Colorado Department of Agriculture on the implementation of the Food Safety Modernization Act in Colorado with trainings for produce growers (next one will be offered 9-29 in Denver); a farm tour with FDA officials (8/28-9-1 in southern Colorado); and the development of resources such as the new website http://freshproduce.colostate.edu/. Additional trainings, outreach materials and other resources are planned for this fall and winter.

Finally, we encourage everyone to attend the Colorado Blueprint 2.0 session (Thursday, September 7^th 2-4pm in the Lory Student Center), part of CSU’s Ag Innovation Summit. This event is free and open to the public. Our PRU helped to facilitate 12 regional town hall listening sessions across the state, and this session will highlight findings from the Blueprint, including opportunities to strengthen the food and agricultural sector across the state. More information can be found at: http://foodsystems.colostate.edu/

Livestock & Range – Todd Hagenbuch

• 2017 L&R Training is in just a few weeks! Our training event will take place in conjunction with the CCAA Retreat September 13-15^th at Stagecoach State Park in Routt County.  Registration information can be accessed by clicking the link below.  CCAA members should have gotten this registration information on Wednesday, but only register one time for both events.  If you aren’t a member of CCAA, consider becoming a member and join us for the rest of the event, or just enjoy fishing, boating, or hiking while the CCAA members work on their items. Thanks in advance to the presenters who are coming up to share their expertise with us and to Retta Bruegger and Ryan Rhoades for helping put the agenda together!
• To register for the retreat/training, click here:   2017 CCAA Good of the Order Retreat & Livestock and Range Training
• Forum – Forum is October 23-26 on campus.  The Livestock and Range PRU meeting will be held on Wednesday, Oct. 25 from 9:30-11:00am, location TBD.  Having only an hour and a half for Forum this year means we’ll be on a tight schedule and will have little time for a lot of content update, so that’s why the training in September is really important. Please make sure to set aside this time at Forum, however, for our PRU meeting.

Nutrition, Food Safety & Health – Jessica Clifford

• The Nutrition, Food Safety, and Health PRU developed two versions of a PRU marketing video, one to be shared during summer months (featuring peppers) and one to be shared during fall/winter months (featuring apples). See links below to view the videos. We also hope to produce a third version of this video for sharing during spring months (featuring leafy greens). Apples: https://youtu.be/s6Cqi4VEX0c; Peppers: https://youtu.be/tdKnX_aoM74
• Food safety training for Colorado cottage food producers was updated in June 2017. 2017 Face to Face Classes: 32 separate classes scheduled; 24 different Colorado locations; 14 County Extension offices sponsoring.