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
  • Held a proponent’s meeting re the wild blueberry leaves extract market research project; there were 5 companies in attendance. In total, 6 proposals were received and an evaluation committee was struck to review each bid against criteria established in the RFP; evaluation committee made its selection and submitted recommendation to Public Tenders Office.
  • Assisted Atlantic BioVenture Centre in its efforts to establish a food product development lab; a space in the Administration Building was identified and maintenance staff were brought on board to do some leasehold improvements.
  • Met with Jamey Coughlin, Dept. of Agriculture, to discuss plans for a community-supported agriculture project that he would like to pursue.
  • Met with representatives from Armalac Industries (prospective new tenant for the Park)
  • Attended a meeting to review NS Dept. of Agriculture ‘Agri-Food Industry Development’ programs and suggest new ideas/improvements for future.
• External Relations
  • Jim completed a document to be used a briefing note for the new board once it is in place.
  • The annual FOIPOP report for government was created.
  • Jim completed profiles for the nomination of candidates for Honouree Dr. to be awarded at convocation. The Awards committee met and made their recommendations. Completion of document for Honourary award
  • The Sustainability website was enhanced and expanded as a result of a meeting of the team.
  • Jim attended a Policy Seminar in Halifax that dealt with the process for developing good policy in Government.
  • The Work Well committee met in Halifax and Jim helped with the preparation of plans for the upcoming Staff Conference.
  • Jim, Sarah and Alisha held a meeting with Xerox and Canada Post on mailing issues from the new print centre.
  • Jim attended the NSIA meet the grads night. This is always a good time to connect with new graduates.
  • Jim attended part of the FCC Ag day event that was held in Alumni theatre. It was a good opportunity to connect with alumni as well as donor.
  • Jim attended the AIF announcement in Halifax at Dalhousie. NSAC was the recipient of 2 of the 6 awards announced.
  • The first draft of the NSAC contribution to the Department Business plan draft was created for review
• Marketing
  • Provided orientation to new staff members
  • Continued implementation of new on-line submission tool for NSAC Print Centre
  • Hosted sustainability lecture to celebrate Print Centre Open House
  • Reorganized sustainability website
  • Coordinated delivery of media training for co-presidents
  • Coordinated meeting with Canada Post to access better direct mail efficiency for NSAC
  • Consulted on look/feel of ABVC website and some of its content
  • Met with International Food Business coordinator to review marketing activities required between January and end of May
  • Coordinated design of various NSAC promotional pieces
• Communications and Alumni
  • Alisha attended meetings and assisted with preparation for President's List 2008.
  • Alisha developed and began distributing an alumni survey to determine the communication needs and preferences of alumni.
• 312 Found/changed alumni records this month
• Alisha took over an NSAC Alumni Facebook group with over 600 members and will use it as a tool to connect with alumni.
• Development and Fund Raising
  • Jim worked with Alisha on the development audit and oriented her to her new position. They attended the Career Fair and met with Alumni.
  • Considerable time was spent cleaning data for the Benefactor to College transfer process. Several days of Training were held.
  • Jim prepared a report for TD Insurance Moleche Monnex and a new program they have to help prevent fraud.
  • Jim met with Bernie and Leslie regarding the Development Audit and a plan was put in place to implement some of the recommendations.
  • Jim and Joanne met with Brian Crouse and Sandra Murphy and reviewed the Scholarships listing to see it changes needed to be made.
  • Alisha created the first draft of a Development plan for NSAC in response to suggestions from the Audit.
  • Alisha and Jim created the agenda and notice for Alumni/Foundation meeting to be held in February.  Background materials were also created.
  • Jim and Alisha began initial planning for a phone campaign to take place the second week of March.

• Website
  • The tender for a communications kiosk for campus was released this month. This would entail adding two additional monitors to Cox and Haley, connecting them through a communications server to allow us to broadcast information to all three monitors (this included the monitor already in the library) instantaneously.
  • WebCRD implementation continues. The SSL certificate was installed and the site is now running securely. Mike is still learning the ins and outs of the system.
  • Mike travelled to Phoenix, AZ for portal training during the week of the 19th. The training was a huge help for the administration and configuration of the student web portal and Mike has been making edits continuously, preparing for a soft launch in the near future.
  • SQL Server license finally arrived and was installed on the web portal database server. We were running on a 180 day trial version.
  • A frontpage refresh is planned for the near future.
  • www.nsac.ns.ca is no more. All traffic attempting to reach nsac.ns.ca is not redirected to nsac.ca. Even google has updated their search results to no longer include .ns.ca in our web address.