Gulf of Maine Council on the Marine Environment Working Group December 2010 meeting decision and action items

decision items  The Working Group accepted the consent agenda as presented and projected.

action items  The Council will produce for print-on- demand glossy marketing materials for use in Councillor briefing and funding proposal packages.

action items  The Working Group will re-engage and strengthen committee/ subcommittee leadership and membership with assistance from current co-chairs and three-month interim co-chair Canadian volunteers.  US co-chairs, interim or long-term, will be named by their agencies to participate in the committee re-engagement.

action items  All GOMC participants including Councilors, WG members, and committee and subcommittee members will be subscribed to receive Gulf of Maine Times notification s.

action items  Jennifer Hackett and Paul Currier will contact the Working Group members who volunteered in October 2010 to work with the Information Management Committee on the homepage/website revision.

action items  With Ted Diers and Jackie Olsen as leads, the Working Group will form a committee or group to draft next steps for the Great Waters Conservation and Restoration Plan.  Ted Diers will lead a discussion Great Waters advocacy with a focus on organizations’ roles, including that of the Council, at a future meeting or conference call.

action items  The Working Group will recommend to the Council that it adopt, “A healthy and valued Gulf of Maine from the rivers to the sea,” as the vision statement.

action items  The Working Group recommends to the Council that it start an annual Sustainable Communities Award.

action items  The Working Group will present to the Council a high-level, edited, and honed list of Action Plan Goal activities and examples of tasks (“Possible Tasks” will be edited to provide examples of tasks.). The “ Activities” and “Outcomes/Results” columns will not be included).

action items  Working Group members will provide to the Secretariat addresses so that the GOMC may distribute to users of Council products a 2-3 question survey using a third-party survey tool (NS agencies cannot access Survey Monkey). This effort will build on and not duplicate the GOMC logic model evaluation process and Dalhousie.

action items  The results of the Council products user survey and the agencies input using the EC spreadsheet model will inform the current AP objectives draft (Feb/Mar 2011) so that the Working Group can present the results and a draft plan at its March meeting.  The committees/subcommittees will provide their input before and after the March WG meeting

action items  The next WG meeting will be convened March 14-15, 2011 in Saint John, NB