Meeting Notes

• July 17, 2023 - Meeting Notes.

• July 19, 2022 - Meeting Notes.

• February 22, 2022 - Meeting Notes.

• September 24, 2021 - Meeting Notes. 

• July 1st, 2021 - Meeting Notes for partner discussion on how to maintain momentum and ensure continuity of the partnership during this period of coordinator staffing transition. Michele Wolfgang with EPA Region 3 volunteered to serve in a facilitator's role in the short-term, and others agreed to also step up to fill capacity gaps in the short-term. WV Rivers staff met directly with Michele and Renee Bryant with EPA Region 3 to discuss what's needed from a short-term facilitator. Meeting notes here.

• June 29th, 2021 -  Meeting Notes. Full-partnership Gathering to celebrate the completion of the strategic planning process. Cadmus Group provided a short presentation, followed by a postcard activity for partners to describe what action(s) they'll be taking to implement the plan.

• June 25th, 2021 - The Steering Committee, via email, approved the final Strategic Plan, which was developed based on survey feedback from the partners. This strategic plan will guide the partnership's work for the next 2-5 years. A document of future ideas was created by Cadmus Group to capture strategies that were not incorporated into this version of the strategic plan.

• May 17th, 2021 - The Steering Committee, via email, approved the Steering Committee Roles & Responsibilities and the Workgroup Objectives & Strategies as per our strategic planning process.

• April 29th, 2021 - Meeting Notes. Full-partnership gathering, facilitated by Cadmus Group, to review survey results regarding the Steering Committee Roles & Responsibilities and Workgroup Objectives & Strategies (final drafts). Partners participated in breakout rooms to discuss "Educating Decision Makers", "Sustaining the Partnership", or "Cross-Workgroup Collaboration". The Steering Committee will vote to approve the final versions by mid-May.

• April 2nd, 2021 - Meeting Notes. Continued conversation with partners from our March 12th meeting to discuss a potential NFWF Small Watershed Implementation Grant on behalf of the partnership. Potomac Conservancy will explore options for being the lead applicant, and what is needed from partners to submit by April 22nd deadline.

• March 17th, 2021 - Meeting Notes. Steering Committee met to develop their Responsibilities for fulfilling their Roles, as part of the strategic planning process. Cadmus group facilitated the conversation with a presentation, and the group shared their ideas in Jamboard. The Steering Committee also reviewed the first draft Workgroup Strategies. David Lillard shared his ideas for proposed next steps regarding our Role for "Educating Decision Makers".

• March 12th, 2021 - Meeting Notes. The team of partners that met on February 26th met again for an executive-level discussion regarding the NFWF SWG-I grant. Angie Rosser began the conversation with an overview of WV Rivers capacity limitations & concerns. As a group, had a robust conversation and discussed creative solutions for either a.) pursuing a NFWF SWG-I in 2021 in a manner that addresses WV Rivers capacity limitations & concerns, b.) postponing until 2021, and others. Will continue these conversations offline, and meet again as a group on March 26th at 10am.

• February 26th, 2021 - Meeting Notes. A team of partners met to discuss a potential National Fish & Wildlife Foundation Small Watershed Implementation Grant. WV Rivers gave a presentation the provided an overview of the Grant RFP, and then facilitated a brainstorming session in Jamboard. WV Rivers will work with partners on drafting a proposal to send to the Steering Committee for review in mid-March.

• January 28th, 2021 - The Steering Committee, via email, approved the Steering Committee Roles and Workgroup Objectives as per our strategic planning process.

• January 20th, 2021 - Meeting Notes. Our strategic planning consultant, Cadmus Group, gave a presentation update on the status of our strategic planning process, including a discussion of the final draft Steering Committee Roles and Workgroup Objectives that were based on partner feedback via a survey. A full video recording of the meeting is available. Cadmus Group will make final edits to the Roles & Objectives based on partner responses in the chat box during the meeting, and share them with the Steering Committee to approve by the end of January 2021.

• December 21st, 2020 - Meeting Notes. A small group of partners met with WV Rivers Coalition staff to discuss Collaborative funding. WV Rivers staff shared a presentation with the past and present funders, and then the group brainstormed in Jamboard ideas for future funding. This conversation will continue in the New Year.

• December 17th, 2020 - Meeting Notes. Steering Committee met as part of the strategic planning process to discuss what their role should be within the Collaborative. The Steering Committee reviewed the draft Workgroup Objectives, and then answered some questions about what their Role should be, including: what is their purpose; what Roles resonate with them; and how often should they meet. They will meet again in February-March to continue the discussion and formalize their responsibilities for meeting those Roles.

• October 16th, 2020 - The Steering Committee, via email, approved the Goals for our Strategic Planning process.

• October 1st, 2020 - Meeting Notes. Ashley and Jacqueline from our strategic planning consultant, Cadmus Group, gave a presentation and hosted a discussion on our big-picture, long-term Goals based on our survey results. They have taken the results of the survey and the discussion at this meeting to create a final draft list of Goals that our partners can provide comments on over the next week. Once we receive their feedback, we'll make any last changes and send them to the Steering Committee for approval. As not all comments from the survey were addressed directly in our meeting, Cadmus Group created this spreadsheet to track their responses to the survey results.

• September 1st, 2020 - Meeting Notes. Watch the webinar or view the presentation. Tanner Haid gave an overview of our accomplishments in 2019-2020. Ashley Arayas led the group in a discussion about the structure and meeting schedule for our strategic planning process, as well as our next steps for defining the Collaborative's big-picture, long-term Goals. We will conduct a survey to collect feedback on creating "SMART Goals" and discuss at our next Gathering on October 1st, 2020.

• August 4th, 2020 - Meeting Notes. Watch the webinar or view the presentation. Introductions to Renee Bryant with EPA Region 3 Source Water Protection Division and Ashley Arayas with Cadmus Group, our strategic plan consultant. Discussed our role as the Steering Committe; the strategic planning process; and two options for how to format our goals & objectives and action plans within the structure of the Collaborative and the plan, as laid out in the presentation above. Next step is to refine these ideas and present at a full gathering in September.

• June 25th, 2020 - Watch the webinar or view the presentation. Discuss the results from our recent "Planning for Success" survey. This webinar is in preparation for our upcoming strategic planning process that we'll be undertaking in 2020-2021 and contains valuable insight into our collective experience with strategic plans & processes. 

• May 28th, 2020 - Watch the webinar or view the presentation. Discussed the results from our recent "Skills & Interests" Survey. We will be hosting another webinar next month on Thursday, June 25th at 10:00am regarding strategic planning.

• March 26th, 2020 - Meeting Notes. Watch the full webinar here. We had ~40 people in attendance to review what the Collaborative accomplished in 2019 and what we look to accomplish in 2020. Documents shared at the meeting included: Operations Guide (final draft), Collaborative Funding Update, GIS Prioritization Model (v1) Summary, Landowner Outreach Matrix (CONFIDENTIAL), and the BMP Toolkit (final draft) - Conservation Survey & Educational Brochure. A follow-up survey on the webinar indicate an interest in additional webinars in the future - full results here.

• February 7th, 2020 - Meeting Notes. The Steering Committee met to review all of the major updates since we last met in September 2019. We formally approved adding a Programmatic Milestone for accomplishing our state's Watershed Implementation Plan. Michelle Audie from the EPA's Source Water Program gave a presentation on Strategic Planning. Brandy Espinola with University of Maryland Environmental Finance Center discussed opportunities for a full-day workshop for water utilities.

• September 18th, 2019 - Meeting Notes. WV Rivers Coalition gave a presentation on the Safe Water Conservation Collaborative's mission of "Protecting Land to Protect Drinking Water Supplies" to set the tone for the meeting. The workgroups and steering committee had breakout discussion and took notes on their next steps. The results of a post-meeting survey have insights into the success of the meeting.

• January 24th, 2019 - Meeting Notes. There were presentations from WV Rivers Coalition & Collaborative partners, Potomac Conservancy on Watershed Conservation, and Chesapeake Conservancy on Applying Chesapeake-Wide Research to West Virginia.