Dear Public Policy Facilitators,

Nick White, Juliana Birkhoff, Harry Manasewich and Ramona Buck are giving a workshop at the upcoming EPP Conference in Portland.  The title of our session is "The Perfect Exit Survey for the Perfect Facilitator."   We are looking at the various types of questions asked on survey forms and considering these as well as providing ideas for a usable focused survey form which is responsive to the goals of EPP.

Dear Colleagues:

The Environment and Public Policy Section of the Association for Conflict Resolution would like to announce the Rob Williams Award for Emerging Environment and Public Policy Leaders. This award was established in 2010 in recognition of the late Rob Williams’ commitment and contributions to the field of environmental and public policy dispute resolution and the professional development of its practitioners. The award will be presented again this year to an emerging practitioner who demonstrates the promise to exercise the leadership exemplified by Rob.

The EPP Leadership Council encourages developing practitioners with 3-8 years of experience in the field and an interest in future involvement in EPP to apply. The 2011 award recipient will receive a one-year membership in ACR and EPP; waived conference registration for the upcoming EPP Section Conference June 28-30, 2011, in Portland, OR. The recipient will also receive a stipend to offset partial cost of conference travel.

The EPP Leadership Council is very excited about this year's annual EPP conference slated for June 28-30, 2011 in Portland, Oregon. The Section is partnering with Portland State University and the National Policy Consensus Center to put on this year's conference, which promises to be highly stimulating and a lot of fun. With its many innovative sustainability initiatives and features, Portland will be a fantastic host city for this year's conference, entitled Seeking Sustainability through Collaborative Governance. Not to mention the city's beautiful parks and quirky landmarks. The 2011 Conference Call for Proposals came out today so please check it out and spread the word. Hope to see you in Portland this summer! 

Greetings!

We are excited to announce some changes to the ACR EPP blog! Our goal is to enable you to better engage with your EPP community in a more dynamic, conversational way. The new focus of the blog will be to:

• Connect you with fellow practitioners;
• Distribute information about EPP news and events;
• Give tips for building your practice and toolbox;
• Provide a forum for networking and mentoring opportunities.

Keep your eyes peeled for new posts and discussions about the topics that appeal to you, and join in the conversation!

Most importantly – we want to hear from you! If you would like to be considered as a potential blogger, email us at environment.public.policy@gmail.com.

Do you use Doodle? (www.doodle.com) I know there are several options for scheduling assistants but I choose Doodle. Aside from some additional features, I like the way it looks and feels. If you use scheduling polls for events with participants across multiple time zones (including internationally) – then Doodle has a “time-zone support” feature than can reduce confusion and make everyone’s scheduling experience just a little bit easier. If enabled, the feature automatically identifies the time-zone (by reference city) of each poll respondent and adjusts the poll options accordingly. Recipients can also self-select a time zone if they are traveling or will be on-the-go during the event. Here’s how:

When you are creating a Doodle poll and are on the Select Times step (step 3 of 4) you can click to enable time zone support.

Tending the Landscape – Growing and Diversifying the Environment and Public Policy Collaborative Field

Thank you to everyone who was able to join the EPP Technology & Environmental Conflict Resolution webinar on Thursday, December 9. A special thanks to the presenters and organizers for their time and expertise! For those of you who missed it then, why miss it now? Click the link below to stream a recording of the webinar 

Stream here --> http://resolv.adobeconnect.com/p5yups31x4e/

Technology & Environmental Conflict Resolution

Thank you to everyone who was able to join the EPP Technology & Environmental Conflict Resolution webinar on Thursday, December 9. A special thanks to the presenters and organizers for their time and expertise! For those of you who missed it then, why miss it now? Click the link below to stream a recording of the webinar (sorry about the delayed start!)

Add your voice -- only 16 questions, so it won't take a lot of time.  The purpose of this survey is to inform the Technology and ECR National Coordinating Committee in their effort to develop and prioritize support and training for groups, agencies and initiatives that may benefit from the addition of new technological tools to their work.

The survey will be followed up with targeted interviews for more specific ideas and suggestions. If you would like to be considered for a followup interview, please include your contact information in the survey.

The survey is anonymous, unless you choose to include your contact information.

Click here to take the survey!

For more information, please contact Dennis Bowker (dennisbowker@volcano.net) or Megan Wiley Rivera (mrivera@hydrologics.net).

I am writing today to remind EPP Section members that the Leadership Council (LC) is in the process of surveying members for their input on the appropriateness and focus of a set of draft ethical standards for neutrals involved in all processes including mediation, entitled “Ethical Standards for Non-Decision-Making Neutrals.” Please visit the Ethics page of the EPP website and review the document and provide your response to the LC's survey.

ACR EPP Photo Gallery

ACR EPP Flickr Page

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Check out some more photos from the ECR 2010 conference: