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Minutes from Alabama Civil Rights Advisory Committee Meeting

January 18, 2007
Auburn NRCS State Office

Herbert Ross, Soil Scientist, Auburn, AL, Black Special Emphasis Program Manager
Julie Yates, Program Analyst, Auburn, AL, State Office Representative

Serves as president for the 2007 AIANEA (American Indian/Alaska Native Employees Association).
Distributed about 20,000 copies of the 2006 American Indian Heritage Month poster to all NRCS offices across the nation and all Tribes in the State.
Working with Alan Dorian; Tribal Liaison, US Forest Service in the Southeast, to set up a Building Tribal relations training session to be held on April 24-26, 2007, at the Poarch Band of Creek Indians Reservation.
The 2007 Training Conference will be held on August 27-31, 2007 at the Omni Hotel in Corpus Christi, Texas.
Edith Morigeau; NRCS National Tribal Relations Coordinator, announced the MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) between NRCS, FSA and BIA has been signed and released to all USDA offices. This agreement clarifies Indian Country terminologies within all agencies and should help USDA program delivery to all Tribes and Alaska Native Villages.

Participated in a teleconference coordinated by the National AAPI.
After discussion it was decided that email traffic about scholarships and job opportunities should be forwarded to the SEPM’s and Mr. Swenson, Human Resources Officer.

Distributed the Reasonable Accommodation Fact Sheet that explains the necessary procedures to request reasonable accommodations for their mentally or physically disabled employee. Fay Garner, Webmaster, will be asked to place the fact sheet on our website.

Last October Ms. McGraw sent out information about Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
February 2, 2007, will be designated as “Wear Red Day” to celebrate Heart Awareness Month.
March is Federal Women’s History Month to recognize women working for the federal government.

Participated in a teleconference about grants and scholarships, to include the HACU (Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities) scholarship.
Colleges will offer up to $2500 grants to agencies to help students with expenses.
Information will be provided at a later date about crediting hours a student works towards the career conversion program.

Attended “Roles and Responsibilities of EEO Advisory Committee” training in Indiana.

Estimated seven vacancies will come open on the National Committee when they terminate in September 2007.

The NRCS Civil Rights Advisory Committee Mission statement will be added to the Civil Rights/EEO poster.
Retirement Seminar is February 21-22, beginning at noon at Holiday Inn in Opelika, AL.
Three civil rights websites of interest:
- Equal Employment Opportunity: http://www.eeoc.gov/
- Civil Rights, Equal Employment Opportunity, and Organizations in Alabama: http://www.al.nrcs.usda.gov/about/crights/index.html
- Civil Rights Division: http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/about/civilrights/
Mr. Kobylski asked Mr. Ford to represent the committee at the MANRRS (Minorities in Agriculture, Natural Resources and Related Sciences) National Conference in Birmingham in March.

Next CRAC meeting is scheduled at the Clanton Alabama Power Company on April 10, 2007, from 10:00 a.m.-2:00 p.m.

If full-time Alabama NRCS employees have comments or suggestions for the committee to take under advisement, please use the Comment/Suggestion Form below and submit to any CRAC member.

The following document is in Adobe Acrobat.

Form to Submit Concerns/Suggestions to the Civil Rights Advisory Committee