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2.
Associate Director
Certification
A CIT workshop was held in Minneapolis, Minnesota. This workshop had
an international flavor with attendance by Julio Morales from Mexico
and Masa Shintani from Japan, as well as 14 Americans. Julio and Masa
provided excellent insights into what might be needed to make the certification
program more usable by other cultures. A report of the year’s
numbers to date is available on the fall board meeting 2005 link, including
current recertification numbers. Also included is a summary from the
Certification Law Handbook (ASAE), which will be instrumental in upcoming
discussions of the future of the program.
International
September included a 12-day training/study tour in China during which
Lisa and Tim met with park managers from several World Heritage sites,
conducted two days of classroom training, and met with the head of
the Ministry of Construction (equivalent to our Secretary of the Interior).
There is a significant desire on the part of the Chinese to become
more actively involved in interpretation as a profession and with NAI
in particular. All costs were covered by GEF funds administered by
the host agency in China.
A contingent of 12 NAI members from 5 countries (US, Canada, Panama,
Wales, Mexico) went to Korea for 14 days to participate in an international
symposium on interpretation. Each participant spoke to varied audiences
at universities, city council meetings, gatherings of education professionals,
and park managers; and became involved in study tours of several Korean
national parks and World Heritage sites. Like the Chinese, the Koreans
are very interested in becoming more involved with NAI and are looking
to us to provide a benchmark for the certification and accreditation
programs that they are beginning to develop nationwide.
Following the Korea trip, Tim and Lisa went on to Japan to present
a two-hour training session at the Whole Earth Nature Society and meet
with leaders from the Whole Earth Nature Society and the Association
for Interpretation in Japan. As a result, we have been asked to consider
attending and presenting at an upcoming Japan Environmental Education
Forum meeting and to investigate ways in which NAI’s programs,
particularly certification training, can be extended to Japan.
IWH first deadline for registration is scheduled for December 15. We
currently have half a dozen registered and more are trickling in. Typically,
we don’t receive significant numbers of registrations until the
week before the deadline for anything we do, so this rate of registration
is normal.
Contracts & Speaking Engagements
I’ve been asked to be a featured speaker at the AABGA (Botanical
Gardens) meeting in June 2006.
Administrative
I don’t generally report on administrative duties that fill in
all the time between the major programs area I do report on, but just
so you know, I usually answer between 30 and 80 e-mails daily, respond
to 4-15 phone calls daily, assist in development of the budget and
business plan, review monthly income/expense reports, log all employee
time sheets in programmatic format, attend executive committee conference
calls, attend NIW conference calls, attend development committee conference
calls, monitor the inbox for and respond to our website comments box,
review all contracts (2-6 monthly), supervise and meet with direct
report staff as needed, meet with other staff as needed, participate
in staff meetings, investigate feasibility of and initiate new initiatives
related to program areas, run process and interviews for hiring any
program staff positions, and a number of other items as they come up.
Respectfully submitted,
Lisa Brochu
866-326-4642
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