Other News & Articles

2010 Annual Session Keynote Speakers

NEAFCS Officer Candidate Position Statements

Online Awards Auction Opens August 8

Frequently Asked Questions - NEAFCS "Come See ME (Maine)"

Living Well Reference Books: Pennsylvania Story

Sights to See (South): Boston to Portland

2010 Awards Update

Things to Do in Maine: Saturday, September 18 is "Open Lighthouse Day"

Come Visit ME (Maine) at the Hospitality Table

Health Care Costs Discussed at 2010 AAFCS Conference in Cleveland

PILD Scholarship Winners Report Increased Knowledge

President's Message

Dear Members,

You hear people say how life just seems to go by faster and faster and I am in total agreement! Everything about our professional lives is faster than six months ago and I am not even going to write about our personal lives. At last year's post-conference meeting, the National Board began our year's work with inspiration from a book called Change is Good You Go First; a great book that I review often. I also visit the website SimpleTruths.comand watch their video clips. I love them! Right now, two of my favorites are Laughter is an Instant Vacation and Even Eagles Need a Push. I encourage you to take a mini vacation and visit this inspiring website.

Professional Development Webinars

In June, NEAFCS hosted its first professional development webinar. Stress Management was the topic presented to 52 participants by member Laura Sant of the University of Idaho. The presentation was recorded and can be viewed at https://gomeet.itap.purdue.edu/p11557698/. Contact your Affiliate President for the printed materials. We have added a new area to the NEAFCS website where you can view the recording of the webinar and view the handout. Our next webinar will be July 21st at 3:00 p.m. Eastern. Member Barbara O'Neill of Rutgers University will present The New Normal: Ten Personal Finance Challenges and Solutions for 2010 and Beyond. The link to participate is https://gomeet.itap.purdue.edu/r91947669. We plan to offer one professional development webinar each month. If you have ideas for topics and/or know of educators we should invite to present, please contact Rhea Bentley, Vice President for Professional Development, at .

Strong Women Healthy Hearts

As we have shared, the Strong Women Healthy Hearts program is offered as a post-conference workshop just after Annual Session, and it is the ONLY onsite training for SWHH being made available. We do have space to accommodate more participants. The SWHH program is also offering a $100 travel stipend to SWHH post-conference participants and strongly encouraging attendance for County-Level staff. To apply for a $100 travel scholarship, please send a brief statement outlining how this funding would ease the financial burden of attending to Adee Viskin at by Friday, August 20, 2010. We are hoping to have at least one person from each state to participate, and I encourage each of you to consider adding this program to your conference registrations — see the NEAFCS website for program details. If you have any question regarding the training, please contact the SWHH project coordinator, Kathy Dothage, at .

Galaxy IV Conference

Speaking of Kathy Dothage, it is my great pleasure as JCEP President-Elect to announce that Kathy has been selected to serve as the Vice Chairperson of the Galaxy IV conference in 2013. Kathy has much past Galaxy experience, including serving as NEAFCS President for Galaxy III, NEAFCS Vice President for Professional Development for Galaxy II, and as Past President of NEAFCS she worked with the committee to write the Galaxy IV document. Clearly, she is more than up to the job! Kathy, congratulations and thank you, on behalf of the members of our six Extension organizations. We greatly appreciate your stepping up to this Vice Chairperson position!

Living Well More Than A Cookbook

There are many opportunities for you to sell this reference book and make money for your Affiliate and NEAFCS. The fast reader of the June e-newsletter was Jeannie Nichols of Michigan State University; she found the coleslaw recipes and was the first to email me with the correct answer, and the next day her apron was mailed to her! So this month, to earn your own apron, I would like you to tell me the page numbers for the Financial Management section and whether there are any ice cream recipes in the book. Please visit the Living Well book page of the website to learn more about the book. Send your book questions to Judy Hetterman at or Debra Cotterill at .

AAFCS Conference

I attended the American Association of Family Consumer Sciences Annual Meeting in Cleveland, representing all of you. This was a very positive experience with many networking possibilities for NEAFCS. I have been a member of AAFCS since college, but it has been a number of years since I last attended their conference. I want to thank Sandy Fry of Texas for serving as Chair of the Extension Community of Practice for three years; she did a grand job. Congratulations to Jan Scholl of Pennsylvania, the new Chair. Congratulations also to Sharon Hoelscher Day, who was awarded AAFCS' 2010 Chalkley-Fenn Public Policy Visiting Scholar Award. Sharon will be spending time in Washington, D.C., focusing on numerous areas, including monitoring legislation, regulations and public policy movement; interacting with Congressional staff, elected officials and agency personnel around designated policy concerns; conducting technical and public policy research, and preparing documents and publications related to public policy. What an exciting opportunity!

One of my most important and rewarding experiences at the AAFCS conference was participating in the Family and Consumer Alliance meeting, where 11 different professional organizations were invited to gather. The objective of this meeting was to review the purpose of the Alliance; to share concerns and current actions; to address these; and to identify future actions that must be taken. The key future initiative identified by the group is the urgent need for developing a brand for Family and Consumer Sciences. I attended many excellent sessions; the highlight for me personally was the closing speaker, Dr. Michael F. Roizen, MD of the Cleveland Clinic and co-author of the book, You, the Owner's Manual. A big "thank you" to Pat Brinkman of Ohio for contributing an article in this issue about Dr. Roizen's presentation! Please do read her excellent summary and think of ways you can put the information into action in your own life and the lives of your clients.

NACAA Conference

By the time you read this, I will be home again after attending this year's excellent NACAA conference in Tulsa, Oklahoma where I am representing our Association as part of the JCEP team.

On a personal note, the barn swallows that nest on the edge of our front door and the lower edge of the fieldstone on our home have raised their first nests of babies and have moved on to the next nest. The bluebird babies are out of their nest, too. My office is located on the fairgrounds and we are busily finishing the details for the Elkhart County 4- H Fair. Around July 17, Mike and I will move large flowering pots, window boxes and hanging baskets (enough to fill our pickup truck and a sixteen-foot stock trailer) to our fairgrounds; the fair runs July 23-31. You can pay a virtual visit to our county fair at http://www.4-hfair.org/. The success of this fair is all about the dedicated volunteers that make it happen year after year. Next month, I will share about the Quilt Gardens project, presented by Elkhart County's Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Please continue to invest in yourself, live each day to the fullest, have fun, laugh and remember — if you don't take care of yourself, no one else will. I hope to see you in Maine!

Until next month,

Mary Ann

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