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Attendees: Don Dickman, Bill Hasse, Jerry Grossman, Glen Moll, Bill Cook, Debra Huff, Doug Heym, Georgia Peterson, Don Howlett, Craig Kasmer, Chris Burnett, Ernie Houghton, Bernie Hubbard, Amy Douglas, Les Homan, Jim Ferris.

Agenda was reviewed and approved by motion.

Secretary report. Jason Mittlestat was unable to attend due to bad weather in the Baraga area. He sent a comment saying that the ballots for 2006 officer elections had been mailed on Jan 20.

Legislative tour, Debra Huff. Deb distributed a proposal (including budget) outlining the plans for the legislative tour. The proposal is for SAF to host a bus tour within short driving distance of Lansing to expose legislators to forest management activities and educate them about forestry issues in Michigan. Potential host partner organizations suggested were Michigan Forest Association (MFA) and Michigan State University Extension (MSUE). Grossman moved that MI SAF fund the project with $2500 from the Michigan SAF Education Fund. Motion seconded and carried. Discussion followed regarding dates, contacts within the legislature and a theme of sustainable forest management. Deb will take the input from the executive team and continue working with her committee to move the tour forward.

Auto Tour, Glen Moll. Discussed the use of removing the MFRA logo from any new signs that are printed. Motion was made, seconded and carried to do so. Discussion on budget for printing brochures. International Paper (IP) will provide a grant to help fund the auto tour budget but requires an audit as a condition of the grant. Motion was made, seconded and carried to hire a CPA to audit MI SAF accounts for 2005 at a maximum cost of $500. Jack Pilon (absent) was instructed to contact SAF national office to find out if there are audit instructions or standards that MI SAF needs to be aware of. Due to changes in IP's organization and the need to provide an audit, it is anticipated that the funds from IP may not be available until late this year. Glenn proposed spending up to $4000 of the auto tour budget for brochures until the IP grant becomes available. Discussion proceeded about contacting new corporate landowners in the U.P. Glen will contact Plum Creek and other new corporate landowners as contacts are available.

Treasurer report, Don Howlett for Jack Pilon. Motion to approve 2005 financial report, seconded and carried. Discussion proceeded on individual line items in the proposed 2006 budget. The following values were inserted in line items:

Changes to proposed 2006 budget worksheet	$
Revenue
Meetings.	1500
Expenses
Michigan Forester	1200
Student chapters. Support for students to attend nat'l meeting	500
U.P. Auto tour	1500
National meetings. Support for 2nd vice-chair to attend nat'l meeting	1000
Leadership academy. Send chair-elect	1000
Awards	500
Awards display. Update the display	200
Policy & legislative event	2500
Misc (audit)	500

Motion proposed, seconded and carried to approve the proposed budget for 2006 as amended. Jack Pilon's offer to continue as treasurer of the MI SAF was received with hearty approval.

Vice-chair nomination update. Candidates are Doug Heym and Steve Ruddell.

Report on State Forest certification, Jim Ferris. MDNR received dual certification under SFI and FSC sustainable forestry standards by Dec. 31, 2006. Several minor corrective action requests (CAR's) were given. Examples include planning, BMP problems related to ORV damage, identification of reserve areas and others. The FSC report may be found at: http://www.scscertified.com/forestry/PDFS/Forest_stateofmichigan_123105.pdf

Forest Management Advisory Committee (FMAC), Bill Cook. The committee is focusing on the development of generally accepted forest management practices (GAFMP's) as required by PA 676, 2002, Right to Forest. The GAFMP's are intended to provide a basis for defense against nuisance lawsuits from neighbors of forest landowners who are disturbed by forest management activities. These guidelines will be reviewed by the FMAC and sent to the Natural Resources Commission for approval this spring.

Awards report, Ernie Houghton. After many years of faithful service, Ernie is handing over the responsibility of awards chairman to Craig Kasmer. The executive team recognized and appreciates Ernie's diligent efforts over many years. Ernie handed out a compiled list of the awards schedule. Discussion followed about the continued relevance of some awards and the funding sources for some. Craig will seek to clarify what the funding source is for the awards in question. A tangent discussion followed about the MI SAF archive records and what to do with them. Jerry Grossman will try to get the records scanned and stored in a more secure situation.

Newsletter report, Georgia Peterson. Georgia expressed appreciation for the many contributions she received for the most recent newsletter. Bill Hasse noted that there has been no advertising form forest industry member for several years. With recent changes in industry ownerships things may stabilize in this area in the future.

Communications report, Bill Cook.
--MI SAF website housed on the MSU server is not working. He will try to move the website to the MSUE server and purchase a new domain name - MISAF.org at a cost of $10/year.
--Day in the life of a forester. Bill is recruiting short descriptions of forestry work for use in recruiting student and teacher interest in forestry as a career.
--Copies of DVD's of the spring meeting, Forestry and whitetails - striving for balance are available in limited quantities. These DVD's contain unedited audio and video content of the entire meeting.
--Legislative profiles. Bill is developing profiles of each legislative district with forestry facts customized for each district. This is an education tool to help legislators understand basic forestry information about their districts.
--Other communication efforts discussed include a conservation breakfast with Michigan Association of Conservation Districts.

Policy update, Bill Cook for Bill Rockwell.
--" An informational update regarding the use of a cumulative effects argument used to stop a timber sale in the Chequamegon/Nicolet national forest in Wisconsin.
--Promoting biomass energy interests with MSUE.
--Bill Cook presented a draft position statement for MI SAF on deer population numbers. The committee recommended that the paper be published as an article in the next issue for The Michigan Forester and membership comment called for.

Fall meeting update. The fall meeting is planned to be a joint meeting with the Michigan Prescribed Burn Council, September, Cadillac.

Spring Meeting update, Jim Ferris, Chris Burnett. The original spring meeting planned to be a joint session with the Ontario Professional Foresters will not materialize. New topics and planning is under way. Meeting will probably be in May on a topic exploring forest management and bird habitat interactions.

Membership report, Jerry Grossman, Amy Douglas. Membership continues to decline. There was much discussion about how to encourage old members to return. Need to enlist 26 news members to recover to the 2004 membership level. It was noted that personal contacts to old members who have not renewed are the most effective. Talking points including financial options and benefits of membership need to be developed. Some discussion about the demographics of the forester population in Michigan - many self-employed consultants who need technical, field oriented topics. These folks have a difficult time getting away from work to attend meetings.

SAF council report, Bernie Hubbard. Bernie presented a Power point summary of the Voss report and Council's responses to the recommendations. The Council discussed the following 4 key questions about SAF's role and vision for the future.

1. Who is SAF and more importantly what should SAF become?
2. What is a forester and more importantly what should a forester be?
3. The overall angst of being exclusive vs. inclusive - include other forest/natural resource related groups (fish& wildlife, hydrologists, ecologists, range management)?
4. Do we need a name change? If so, should it be supported from some defining actions? What actions?

It was proposed and agreed that a special session should be added to the spring meeting to discuss these questions and provide feedback to the Council for their meeting in early June.

Council reviewed Fellow nominating process and found many irregularities. They have developed a new process that will provide for more consistency. The new process will utilize a District level Fellows committee consisting of 5 fellows, one of which must be a woman. This committee will review all fellow nominations and forward them on to the Council with recommendations.

Minutes from the November 2, MISAF executive meeting were reviewed and approved.

Other miscellaneous topics:
" Old Journals from date of beginning to 1999 will be available to members online this year.
" Names of Michigan SAF elected officers are not listed on the national website. Don Howlett to follow-up with national.

Adjourned at 4:06

Respectfully submitted,

Jim Ferris for Jason Mittlestat