Mendocino Coast Cooperative Weed Management Area
Monthly E-Mail and Online Newsletter
February, 2006

Contents- Click on the item to go to the details
1. February calendar
2. Latest additions to the website
3. National Invasive Weed Awareness Week: Feb 26-March 3, 2006
4. In-kind reports up to January 31, 2006 are requested.
5. Summary of in-kind contributions for December, 2005 are available.
6. Coordinator's report for December, 2005 is available.
7. Minutes of the November 30, 2005 Planning Committee Meeting are available.
8. January Workgroups Briefs are available.
9. Resource of the month: CalWeedTalk
10. Coordinator's priorities for February are available.

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1. Our February calendar is available [click here]. All MCWMA meetings are open to the public. Highlights are
2. The latest edition to our new website is an "About Us" page [click here], with a list of our partners, and the map and Memorandum of Agreement of the WMA. Portions of the site are available in Spanish [haga clic aquí]. Please send comments or content to add to the website to webmaster@mcwma.org.
3. National Invasive Weed Awareness Week: Feb 26-March 3, 2006. We hope to get local newspaper coverage of invasive plant issues by issuing a press release concerning this nation-wide event sponsored by the North American Weed Management Association. The Mendocino Coast Cooperative Weed Management Area partnership is not an advocacy organization, and thus we do not, as an organization, endorse or oppose the positions of the North American Weed Management Association. However, we have no problem with taking advantage of this opportunity to raise awareness about invasive plants at the local level.
4. In-kind contribution reports up to January 31, 2006 are requested. MCWMA partners and associates: if you have not done so already, please turn in your reports on in-kind contributions for the period of January 1 to January 31, 2006. Form are available from the website in a variety of formats [click here].
Please recall that all invasive plant-related efforts, volunteer or paid, for the Mendocino Coast Weed Management Area may be reported, and help us meet our target for matching contributions to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation grant. However, please note on the form if the hours were paid from federal funds or are used as matching funds for another federal grant, as we cannot use such efforts as local matching contributions for our grant.
5. Summaries of In-Kind Contributions. The in-kind contributions that you report will be used in two ways:
a. a summary of matching contributions for the NFWF grant is contained in the monthly coordinator's report
b. on-the-ground weed management efforts are summarized in the monthly projects workgroup brief

6. Coordinator's report for December, 2005 is available [click here]. The report contains project management information for the grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Pulling Together Initiative.

7. Minutes of the November 30, 2005 Planning Committee Meeting are available [click here]. Topics of highest priority at present are the preparation of the Strategic Plan and conducting the community meetings to gather public input.

8. January Workgroup Briefs are available. All workgroups have been drafting sections of the Strategic Plan, as well as continuing efforts on tasks from the NFWF PTI project.
9. Resource Review. I plan to review an online resource from our Resource webpage each month, starting with e-mail discussion lists. There are a number of such lists that may be of interest to invasive plant managers, and others. The first one I want to introduce you to is CalWeedTalk. The list owner gives the purpose of this list as "providing a forum for discussion of invasive plant issues in California. Sponsored by the nonprofit California Invasive Plant Council, this listserv serves to facilitate information sharing between its members and others concerned about 'wildland weeds,' those particular plants that damage the state's ecosystems."
The list is unmoderated and open to the public. To read or get more information about this listserv, [click here]. To subscribe, send an e-mail to CaliforniaWeedTalk-subscribe@topica.com . This list is a good place to get announcements concerning events in California and the US. For example, here is a post about an upcoming advocacy event:

"Invasive Weeds Awareness Day at the Capitol
from Elizabeth Brusati
Jan 24, 2006 12:02 PST

Third Annual California Invasive Weeds Awareness Day at the Capitol

March 8, 2006, 8:30 am – 5:00 pm

Join us in Sacramento for the 2006 Weeds Day at the Capitol! In the
morning we will hear about the latest agency developments, including
invasive species coordination efforts through the Resource Agency’s
Biodiversity Council. In the afternoon we will split into teams for
appointments with Senate and Assembly members’ offices."

To see the complete message [click here].
People also ask, and receive, advice on invasive plant management on this list. There is a recent post from our own Lori Hubbart on restoration with native plants. I suggest you skim through the message archive to see if you want to subscribe. Or if you don't like your e-mailbox to get cluttered, consider bookmarking the site and reading the archived messages every now and then.

10. Coordinator's Priorities for February are available [click here]. Finishing the Strategic Plan is priority number one.