By: Gil Gullickson, 2019-2021 AAEA President
Serving as your president during these unprecedented times makes me wonder what serving as president during precedented times was like. The good news is that I think precedented times are coming around the corner, and will be in full force this summer.
Vaccines are being widely distributed. COVID-19 cases are trending downward in most areas. Folks are traveling again. Offices are making plans to once again be filled this summer.
And though it all, AAEA/Agricultural Communicators Network is moving forward.
Your board met in mid-April to review our course. Highlights include:
- We’re in the black with our budget, tracking where we were last year. One factor that helped, of course, were fewer in-person meetings and fewer expenditures. Maintaining fiscal responsibility during this time, though, bodes well when normalcy returns. More good news: Sponsor dollars are up from last year.
- As of now, an in-person Agricultural Media Summit (AMS) is on target August 1-4 in Kansas City at the Loews Hotel. We will also celebrate our 100th anniversary at AMS. Registration has opened at https://web.cvent.com/event/74c93991-b640-4008-8d0d-ea9a44389a0b/summary?rp=00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
- If you haven’t already, get your award entries in today! We’ll celebrate everyone’s accomplishments at AMS.
- Like last year, the 2021 International Federation of Agricultural Journalists (IFAJ) will hold its Congress virtually, with free registration. The good news, though, is dates and countries have been selected through 2027. The in-person 2022 Congress is slated for Denmark, the country that was originally slated to host the Congress in 2020.
- Membership has decreased a bit since COVID-19 struck. It’s not life-threatening yet, but Jennifer Kiel and Jessie Bland are co-chairing the membership committee and have some great growth ideas.
- The Special Interest Groups (SIGs) continue to provide great professional development webinars each month. Matt Wilde is the new SIG chair and is working with the SIGs to continue this great trend. “Hallway Conversations” has proven to be a popular format. Katie Navarra has also done a great job with podcasts this year, and we’re excited for future ones.
- Nominations close for the Distinguished Service Award and the Lifetime Achievement awards on May 14. If you have anyone you want to nominate, please contact Larry Dreiling at [email protected] for nomination forms.
- We continue to invest in development of future agricultural communicators. Sarah Meghrian, a student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has been chosen for the editorial communications intern with the Illinois Soybean Association in Bloomington, Illinois. Baylee Hogan, a student at Oklahoma State University, has been selected for the marketing communications internship with broadhead. in Minneapolis, Minnesota. We also awarded two scholarships to college students.
It’s time to re-evaluate our previous strategic plan.
In 2016, AAEA leadership mapped out a 5 year strategic plan to carry us through the 100th anniversary. With 2020 now behind us, we’ll be gathering a committee together again to map out goals and strategy for the next 3-5 years. We will examine our current mission, vision, and values, and be reaching out to hear from all of you for input. Stay tuned for more.
What’s ahead
I looked at a couple Byline columns I wrote at this time last year. “Uncertainty” was the theme of the time. That’s changing, fortunately. We aren’t out of the COVID-19 woods yet, but it certainly is lifting. The AAEA/Ag Communicators will emerge stronger than ever.
Gil Gullickson is the executive editor of crops technology with the Meredith Corporation. He was AAEA’s Story of the Year award winner in 2020. Gullickson has received numerous accolades, including the IFAJ 2020 AgTech Reporting Award, the 2017 IFAJ/FAO Award for Food Security Reporting and several AAEA honors for writing and photography.