 Good afternoon All right, so I want to first of all I haven't really had a chance to welcome the group to conference. So Thanks Bruce. That's better So first off welcome to conference. I haven't had a chance to address the entire group have been with several smaller groups over the last couple days, but Welcome and thank you for the work that you do across the state I want to just spend a few minutes with you today before you go into your breakout sessions and talk a little bit about the impact of the work we do and You know as I've stepped into this job July 3rd and started talking to our stakeholders and constituents and people across the state One thing that they became very clear is that we have a wonderful organization made up of people that truly care about the citizens in North Dakota. So, you know, whether that's 4-H and youth development programming family and Community wellness programming agonized resource programming the work that we do truly does have an impact So I want to share with you a couple of things relative to that You all know that we've moved to pairs and Ron. What does pairs stand for? I think I got to get my district directors on the same page about what what pairs stands for So I wanted to pairs To find a few success stories because I wanted to talk just a little bit about that and I want to emphasize the need for us to continue to utilize that to put those success stories and tell our story use it to Help your administrative team understand better the work that you're doing and so I do have a few prizes This afternoon so I'm going to do what I call my director's pick So going into pairs you can download export All the success story reports that have been done for the calendar year So I did that and I've got two people that did that really outstanding work in terms of volume of success stories So our Lou Morehouse and Linda Kuster here So Lou and Linda had 14 and 15 success stories each in pairs Nobody else even really came close to that by the way So I also want to highlight just a few I picked out a few across the spectrum of what we're doing and I I'm going to give you a little head start on Halloween So each year as individuals you're putting in these success stories I know some of you've got teams so feel free to share this with your team if you're working in more of a team environment with these But Megan miradol Glean, North Dakota Where's Megan now Megan Megan should know that my wife was really jealous that she saw this Hershey's glow-in-the-dark Candy she wanted to keep it. You're gonna get it Jerry stuck Having procedures you saw that actually on the screen Crystal shod them in right in the heart of the Palmer amaranth Stuff that's going on Great work Tom Peters made you do the Palmer amaranth work or made you report the success story Where's Tom Cald his gardening foreman's? Tom All right, I'll trust you. All right a couple more here. So Jody broons dealing with difficult people Nice job Jody So last but not least the Cole Smith Dunn County food pantry There's a call So what I want you to notice about These stories and the success stories what I picked up on and it really dovetails with what Chuck talked about These are really ways that we are impacting lives of citizens. It's about the relationships that we've built and so whether that's We'd control programs that we're working on with Palmer amaranth or whether that's a food Food pantry issue whether that's a horticulture issue. We're developing relationships with our constituents With our citizens with the people out there So part of what I want to do here is encourage you to continue to submit success stories because it's important For me to be able to gather that sort of information and use that to talk to our decision makers Leads me to my next point So we're heading in the legislative session. We need your help. Some of you have heard this message already But in the next couple weeks Each of your offices will be getting some additional information on ways that you can engage your citizen advisory boards in helping Them tell our story with legislators And so we really want you to engage those citizen groups engage the people you're impacting and help them help us Talk to those decision makers. And so I've got Dwayne how working on some information We've had a number of citizen advisory groups already asked for ways that they can be helpful So we're going to do a little coaching with them We're going to give them some ways that they can help have that conversation and we want you to then in turn Make sure that they get that information so engage those citizen advisory boards engage those local constituents Make sure that that those legislators, especially after the election Are hearing about what we're doing heading into the legislative session You may have noticed that we're we we have made the decision to Open up or refund a number of our professional development programs and that really is In large part because we're able to Look at this from the lens of wanting to make sure that our people are equipped To go out and do the work that we need to do and that includes themes of Chuck talked about Investing in yourself Making sure that you're technically competent making sure that we've got people trained to step into leadership roles Whether that's at a county level area level state level But we want to make sure that we've got that pipeline going of investment in in those opportunities Because it makes a difference in terms of how the organization runs So you'll continue to see us Offer those opportunities invest in you as our employees We want to make sure that you're aware of those and taking active advantage to those opportunities as you go forward Lastly I want to challenge you just a bit this this conference is about innovation This conference is about how do we innovate and so I want you as you go home tomorrow To think about what innovations are you going to take back to your local citizens? What innovations are you going to help them? implement in your 4-H programs in your family and community wellness programs in your ag and natural resource programs and What innovations are you going to do personally to help you be a better extension employee? What innovations are you going to do to help you be a better and ESU employee? What innovations are you going to implement in your personal lives to be a better husband mother father? So on As you think about this innovation theme We want you focused on the things that you can do to Kind of focus on that continuous professional improvement and so as I leave you here this afternoon I just want to again. Thank you for the great work that you're doing Thank you for the investment you're making taking time out of your schedules to be here at conference to engage in these networking Opportunities to engage in the professional development opportunities because So have a great rest of the conference and we'll see you as we move through the rest of the year. Thank you