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
  • InNOVAcorp meeting to discuss concept of NSAC Bio-Accelerator/Incubator facility and program; organized steering committee meetings to plan next steps in moving the project forward; met with CBCL Engineering to discuss concept of new building and timeline
  • Met with Crawford MacPherson, County of Colchester, Director of Community Dev’t, to discuss Bible Hill master plan and potential new entrance into the Park
  • Reviewed cleaning contract RFP as it pertains to the Park
  • Met with TIR and NSDA to discuss transfer of leasing authority at AgriTECH Park from TIR to NSDA.
• External Relations
  • The section sponsored a seminar on the evolution of Fair Trade Coffee and it’s impact on developing countries.  The seminar was lead by our new Honoray Degree recipients the Moores.
  • Graduation was an exciting time for the whole section. Several innovations were attempted including pinning new alumni as they left the stage and an alumni booth at the reception.
  • There was a meeting of the steering group for the Atlantic Centre for Ag Innovation.  The results of the study were presented and next steps devised.
  • The Institutional data group met to determine what sorts of information could best be presented for sharing.
  • Jim attended the Rotary International District conference meeting in Antigonish.
  • Jim and Alisha held a meeting with signature Resorts group on promoting the three provincial resorts to alumni.
  • NSAC hosted receptions for all the three main parties running in the provincial election.
  • The Development and External Relations office assisted with the staff conference that was held at NSAC this year.  There were many interesting sessions and social events.
• Marketing
  • Began policy development to guide document management activities and infrastructure on campus;
  • Piloted design planning meeting with NSAC International to establish a new design approach for all of their material that will provide consistency but also meet institutional standards;
  • Attended University Management Course in Alberta, provide by University of Manitoba's Centre for Higher Education Research and Development;
  • Began work with Students' Union on yearbook cover design;
  • Began first phase of planning for Campaign 2009;
  • Began planning for team retreat.
• Communications and Alumni
  • Provided communications support for the 104th convocation ceremony with news releases, medis advisory, media kits and media relations;
  • Promoted RSS feed via e-mail to media contacts;
  • Promoted new NSAC bus via website and RSS feed;
  • Provided communications support to CSI for the opening of the NSAC Community Garden via media advisory and cold calls to local newspapers;
  • Conducted media relations actvities surrounding the grad opening of the Chute Animal Nurtition Centre;
  • Sponsored a series of Safe Grad messages on two local radio stations to air in early June;
  • Summer 2009 edition of Agricola News was coordinated and sent to print by the end of the month. The edition will be mailed mid June;
  • Planning began for NSAC's annual Open House, which will take place July 23;
• 130 Found/changed alumni records this month.
• Development and Fund Raising
  • This was the last month before conversion to the new Colleague Advancement system for Datatel.  As a result a lot of effort was put into cleaning up files in preparation for conversion.
  • Reports for Foundation/Alumni Annual meeting were prepared.
  • The grand opening of the Chute Animal Nutrition Center was held the last week in May. Dr Chute was a good ambassador for NSAC and excellent donor
  • The Foundation and the Alumni Association held their annual meetings the last week in May.
  • The office made donations in the names of the 2008-2009 Students' Union Executive to the Alumni Family Bursary to thank the students for their dedication to the university throughout the year.
  • Maxine MacLean, a fourth year student, worked in the office for a week updating addresses in the database.

• Website
  • Visix configuration is ongoing.
  • Unicon sent an updated proposal for portal changes. Mike is to discuss options with IT to see what is feasible.
  • New frontpage was delivered, but there are some compatibility issues. Bristol is looking into the changes required. The new frontpage is designed to be wider and have an improved ability to display graphic links.
  • Plant and Animal Science staff pages have been converted over to the new template. Mike will be working on the Engineering staff pages in June.
  • New pages developed for Print Centre.
  • Staff training is ongoing on an as-needed basis.
  • Web stats have declined over previous months, which have seen increases. We are down over 100,000 hits as compared to May 2008.
  • Our top three search phrases for May 2009 are: nsac, nova scotia agricultural college and oddly enough, "chemistry of photography".
  • Our top three search keywords for May 2009 are: nsac, scotia and nova.