How did you use your extra hour this weekend? I pretty much slept through mine. My goal was to get through a bit of a cold and laryngitis. I'm not sure how much it helped. I did also get out to see the sandhill cranes in Woodbridge, as did others that arrived by the bus load. It must have been Lodi's festival this weekend; I probably should have checked first. Fortunately, the cranes got the message and were present in what must have been thousands of birds well before the sunset fly in. If you haven't visited the Woodbridge Reserve, it's worth a stop though it is admittedly difficult to predict where the cranes will land each evening. Fortunately there is no shortage of other bird species to watch. One of this year's World Food Prize laureates, Lawrence Hadad, stated that “In an unreliable world, diversity is the most reliable currency”. I believe that applies here.
Dr. Emmanuel Okello started November 1 as a CE Specialist at UCD in the School of Vet Med, specializing in Antimicrobial Stewardship. And today marks the start date for Daniela Bruno, a Dairy Advisor, based in Fresno, with programmatic responsibilities in Fresno and Madera Counties. Please take a few minutes to welcome Emmanuel and Daniela to UC and UC ANR.
This week is a Strategic Initiatives leader meeting followed by a Zoom meeting of Program Council. Early this week I need to finish identifying commodity group liaisons for those boards that have research committee. My plan is to start meeting with the liaisons periodically, by Zoom, just to stay in touch and provide an opportunity to share relevant information (2-way communication). That's scheduled to start in early 2019. I'm also establishing a REC Users Committee that will begin meeting in early 2019, again by Zoom. The goal with this committee, at least initially, is to share information and hopefully improve understanding. Despite already having more than enough standing meetings, I don't think we can over-communicate. And, even if we don't like the message, communication is better than silence and leaving one to create their own story.
It appears that it is also time for those of us based out of Oakland to complete our mid-year goal update. Considering I can't remember even entering goals for the year, this promises to be interesting. Actually, it offers a good opportunity to focus my efforts, and time, towards my intended outcomes and condition changes, allowing me a chance to redirect time away from those things that don't necessarily lead to the desired change in condition. Later this week I have a meeting to review metrics for the goals that I ‘own' from our strategic plan. It is shaping up to be a goal-oriented week.