January 23, 2024
Members Present: Jenna Deibel, Janet Hutchison, Mary Opperman, Vickie Dunaway, Shirley Jaynes, Tom Casselman, Amber Blanchard, Susan Hermreck
Agenda Overview: Janet went over the agenda. Tom made correction to change Gayle’s name to proper spelling in original minutes. Tom made a motion to accept the corrected minutes. Vickie 2nd. Motion passed.
Financials: Mary mentioned that mystery charge for Meta from last month were snacks from Costco. Website and Dawn were the only expenses for the month of December.
Monitoring: Vickie has been playing phone tag with Jenn Hoffman at OSU-C. But waiting on grant funding to move forward on getting either class or crew to complete monitoring in Wolf Creek and Mill Creek. Want to start talking to resource specialists (i.e. soil, hydrology) at Ochoco.
Jill Welborne (retired USFS botanist) may be available for monitoring work.
Vickie will contact Ellie Young for information on the All Hands All Brands for more beaver dam analog or willow planting work.
Forest Service Update: Forest Service representative not present.
Grant Update: Janet received an email from the lead for TASS grant to ask about application status. ODF received 14 project applications totaling $985,866 in requested funds. Budgeted amount to allot to projects was originally $250k, but received additional $150k from Good Neighbor Authority agreements and other grants, so total available funds for grants is now $400k. Award letters and funding decisions will be released by Friday 1/26/2024.
Vernita put in for TASS grant for climate change workshops with Forest Service and Deschutes/Ochoco Collaboratives.
Prescribed Fire Subcommittee Strategy Plan/Sustainable NW: Had a good meeting this month. Talked about approach and how to go about strategic plan/zones of agreement. Thomas Stokely has taken point on that and doing background work. Tom feels like they made good progress.
Update on Operations Manual: Tom has no updates to share.
Facilitator Scope of Work: Janet will send copies of Scope of Works for Dawn and facilitator position for members to review. Group will discuss areas of overlap, projected hours, and responsibilities that need editing during next Executive Committee meeting.
Facilitator: Jenna has accepted a position as the Extension Forester for Central Oregon, so will not be available to facilitate for the OFRC. Will be available to OFRC as a neutral, scientific and educational resource. Janet has exhausted her avenues to find a facilitator and would welcome any recommendations from the group at the next Executive Committee meeting.
Could ask students at COCC or OSU-C if anyone would be interested.
Amber will talk to her boss at Crook County Fire about her scope of work to see if facilitating/grant writing could potentially fit into her schedule. Also recommended asking ODF or Oregon State Fire Marshall’s offices to see if someone there would be interested in facilitating. Jenna will also keep an eye out for grants that would suit the OFRC.
Agenda Items for Feb. 2024 Full Group Meeting: Elections and signing the Operations Manual agreement. Slater will do a presentation on the Wildfire Crisis Strategy on the Grassland.
Future Plans/General Sharing: Janet suggested that we should take a look at Dry Forest ZoA to align with East Side Screens. Vickie volunteered to look it over.
Would like to see if the Forest Service has a campground that needs a cleanup or something for the OFRC to have a weekend outing to build group comradery.
Tom and Janet discussed asking Forest Service about funding possibilities for projects on the Grasslands from the Wildfire Crisis Strategy at the next Executive Committee meeting.
Talk to Dawn about taking Richard Vacira off email list because his address has some technological issues.
The meeting was adjourned at 2:23pm.
