Development and External Relations Update

The Development and External Relations office UPDATE is a monthly summary of activities in the section and is published for your general information. If you have questions, please contact Jim Goit or call at (902) 893-7950

• AgriTECH Park
  • Laurie
    • completed ATP/ABVC portion of the Department’s accountability document
    • presentation to Canadian Association of Farm Advisors Truro chapter
    • gave tours and met with several staff members of Vet Pathology Lab Services, NSDA, to scope out temporary lab and office space at AgriTECH Park while the Hancock building undergoes renovations in 2009
    • met with Laura O’Blenis, Manager of Fredericton’s Knowledge Park, and gave her a tour of ATP
    • met with Human Resources to review all casual research positions with ABVC in support of the casual conversion process
    • attended Canadian Association of Business Incubation annual conference in Laval, Quebec; toured Laval’s Bio-Science Park and Quebec’s Biotechnology Innovation Centre (awarded 2002 Incubator of the Year – first non-US recipient of this award).

External Relations

• There was general work in preparation of the Atlantic Agricultural Hall of Fame. Jim prepared citations while Joanne worked on invitation lists, the program brochure and the meeting agendas. Jim completed research and writing of the history of the Atlantic Agricultural Hall of Fame document. It will be presented at the induction ceremony on the 23rd of October
• Jim met with Terry Murray and Alan Johnson on CORDA Partnership for promotion of business development in the Colchester region. An article was placed in the Agricola news and we shared an ad and editorial in Progress magazine.
• Jim represented NSAC at a reception hosted by the province for the Premier of Bermuda.
• Jim attended a meeting of the Atlantic Universities Communications directors to work on a plan for joint promotion of universities in Nova Scotia.
• Jim and Terry worked with the OACC on the lecture that is partial sponsored by the Class of 44. Gwenn Dyer gave an excellent presentation with one of the largest attendances for such a event recently.
• Jim attended the annual grape growers tour in the Valley. This is an excellent opportunity to connect with alumni and industry participants.  
• Jim and other executive attended the student and parent reception held at the time of orientation.
• The development team worked on their 2008-09 action plans and the 2008-11 section business plan
• There were several meetings of with XEROX on the Fleet management project.
• The plan for installation of a large monitor for displaying information in the library was completed. Jim met with the Student Union and made an initial understanding on how it will be used.
• A position description for an assistant to help with fund raising was created.
• The NSAC portion of the department accountability document was completed and submitted
• Marketing
  • Completed negotiation of managed service contract with Xerox for new in-house, fully integrated print shop
  • Began full-scale implementation of NSAC Print Shop
  • Fulfilled tactical implementation of NSAC's institutional marketing program
  • Began leading second stage of fleet assessment, designed to minimize NSAC's environmental impact and reduce operating costs
  • Began strategic communications-marketing effort for Performance Genomics Inc.
  • Briefed department heads and operating divisions on institutional marketing program and the opportunities to customize the campaign for their own promotional purposes
  • Led brainstorming activity for team on ways to reduce our environmental impact
  • Met with marketing agency and NSAC Print Shop to identify cost-savings and opportunities to partner on projects
  • Presented at RGS's Friday at 3 to researchers and grad students on communicating science to a non-science audience
• Communications and Alumni
  • Jim and Terry met with the Alumni Committee on the fall alumni event. There will be some changes to the way it has been done in past years. Discussions were held with TD Insurance Meloche Monnex on sponsorship of dinner. A meeting with the Alumni Awards committee was held.
  • Jim attended a Dalhousie Alumni Event in Truro and a St Mary’s reception during the month. He also attended a meeting of maritime alumni professionals at CBU in Sydney
• 20 Found/changed alumni records this month
• Development and Fund Raising

• Website
  • The NSAC web portal has been installed and is being configured over the next few months.
  • Embraceyourworld.ca has been registered and the new website, replacing askvic.ca, will be going live in October.
  • The recruitment HSIP program is online again and accepting registration online for the event.
  • A new template was created for the Wild Blueberry Research Centre. It can be found at http://nsac.ca/blueberry
  • An academic planning online survey/form was completed and is online on the inside at http://inside.nsac.ca/academic_planning.
  • Mike assisted the OACC in creating multiple online forms for their conferences which are being held across Canada. Forms were created in both French and English.
  • Website traffic was up immensely this month, almost double August.