Development and External Relations Update

The Development and External Relations office UPDATE is a monthly summary of activities in the section and is published for your general information. If you have questions, please contact Jim Goit or call at (902) 893-7950

• External Relations
  • Jim met with David Drysdale from Scotland on Economic Development and partnerships with new university in Highlands and the Islands
  • Jim was part of the discussion on the proposal for a new CARC.  If successful this new organization will attempt to coordinate research efforts across Canada.
  • Both Jim and Claude Innes joined the Rotary Club of Truro during this month to represent NSAC in the community. 
  • The Hall of Fame Induction ceremony was especially nice this year. Two new directors from PEI will add new energy to the board.
  • Jim lead a group of health care workers on a tour of Cox and Haley Institutes.  They visited the plant and animal molecular biology labs and heard about how science at NSAC is used beyond agriculture.
• Marketing
  • The marketing campaign was successfully launched across multiple media.
  • Marketing research completed on new market potential for ContEd
  • Began consulting with Recruitment, Enrollment Management and Registry about how and when to target prospects with personalized messages
  • Launched two more rounds of campaign creative: nsac.ca/wand and nsac.ca/web
• Communications and Alumni
  • The NSAC Noticeboard was shutdown and replaced with a self serve message Forum. The Forum allows people with NSAC.CA e-mail addresses to post and modify their own messages and increases the type of content that is available while freeing development staff.
  • There were two editions of the Alumni e-NEWS to accommodate the activities around alumni weekend.  We continue to get very positive feedback on this initiative.
  • This month priority was given to the three major events held in October.  This included the Alumni Weekend, Convocation and the Atlantic Agricultural Hall of Fame.  These events build on our relationships with alumni and friends.
  • Jim made a presentation to Faculty Council on the Development office and updated them on our successes in fund raising.
• 287 Found/changed alumni records this month
• Development and Fund Raising
  • The Class of 1959 decided on a project for fund raising for their 50th anniversary year.  The Development office will be working with them to help reach their objective.
  • The development office worked with the awards committee in preparing the citations for the two Friends of NSAC awards given at Autumn assembly.  The 4-H Council and the Womens' Institutes are both good friends of NSAC.
  • Jim made a proposal to the Alumni Association for the transfer of fund held in trust to the NSAC Foundation.
  • An understanding with the Class of '59 was reached on their fund raising objectives for their 50 anniversary and the process was begun.  They will establish a teaching development fund that will eventually support efforts of the teaching development committee.
  • Discussions were also held with the class of '60 on a fund raising project.
  • There was a good flow of larger donations during the month.  The total $662,051.10 has been recorded this fiscal year so far.  This is only 10% less than the whole of last year with the winter season and two campaigns to complete.

• Website
  • Tim Delaney our web specialist decided to take another position in the department of
    Agriculture .  He was replaced by Mike Pauley, also an NSAC Graduate.
  • The website was converted to the new server. Some of the new security features on the webserver caused problems for the more interactive pages but this was solved during the month.
  • Mike spent time going over the layout of the website to improve some navigation issues.
  • Academic (Faculty) website was converted over from the old style to the new style using templates.
  • The webserver was setup for more efficient administrative use.
  • Templates were created for the National Volleyball Championships to be held at NSAC in March.
  • Testing of new Webstats software is ongoing. There is a need for a more detailed analysis program and Mike is continually implementing new programs until we find one that fits our needs.
  • The Noticeboard was replaced with the NSAC Forums software.  This allows people to post their own notices and increases the communication potential for the campus community.