Ortiz responds, so you have some experience there? Great! Howmany Spanish speaking staff do you have around the state? Manyof your volunteers from these communities? Sounds like a terrific resource and partnership. Tell you what, let’s get together ina month when we have fin ished our planning with the schools. Then we will know from our end where we are starting. Youbring in your networks and numbers, and we canget down to business. Oh, just by the way, I think we are going to have to also find some time to talk about branding this. You know, Junior Achievement nationally really has a new branding campaign, and sincewe are the ones really negotiating with the schools, this will need to be really JA branded. Don’t get me wrong, wewant you to get all the credit you need. Wou ldn’t be a partnershipwithout it. But we are going to have to work that through.
Meanwhile Back at the Ranch….
The next month’s meeting of the State 4 -H Advisory Council goes as might be predicted. Meaning it did not go well at all. The partnershipdiscus sionwas fraught, as usual, between Al and T’Resure but with high anxiety about narrowing the focus, moving away from the club, partnering with another nonprofit, and especially the implications for staffing. Thewhole idea of focusing on a topic, really complementing by focusing, leaves almost everyone in the room cold. Besides all that, Al, points out, we actuallydo not have much of a minority membership. And, last time I counted, we only had twominority volunteers in the entire state! So, where is all this capacity to partner going to come from? Clare responds, well we will need to build it. This is a terrific partnership, a great way to start really gearing up for new populations of young people, really getting on board with the national trend. And we will turn our numbers around. Will it take resources? Sure. Will we need to change? You bet. But JA gets us into the schools, into the classroom, into the eyes and heads of the kids. And we go in under their resource umbrella. From there, we cancarve out our own niche in the schools – especially the middle schools where JA is strong. It is the best, most efficient shot we have. Do we need to fuzz things a bit to do it? Yes, but what we need right now is our best thinking for how to go into that meeting with Hernando next month. T’Resure leans forward, I could not agreemore. This is exactly the kind of new thinking I have been arguing for since I have been here. So, I assumewewill be in a hiring mode, right? Hire some key fulltime staff to handle the Spanish groups? I think I am one of only two blacks in the entire Extension and 4-H staff put together. So, wewill need more minorities if we really expect to bring value and begin to carve out a place for ourselves here.
Terrific. Shall we start to recruit? I know some really talentedpeople who could be interested.
Silence.
Actually, Clare admits, we just got notice from the Dean this morning. Therewas a finance meeting yesterday. We have to accommodate a 20% budget cut for the rest of the fiscal year. And I am told that is going to come with a demand for restructuring of Extension itself and how it fits in the university. The
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