–Julie “JMac” MacSwain
Greetings! It is with much excitement and anticipation that I begin as your President of ARCSE. Time has flown by since I retired from NRCS with 36 years of service to the agency. Now it’s my time to give back to others. I look forward to serving you!
Thank you to Arnold King for his leadership as President and Cheryl Simmons for her leadership as Past President. Please join me in welcoming Mary Podoll to the role of President-Elect. We have an outstanding leadership team who continue to help keep ARSCE moving forward.
The ARCSE Board met on August 7th, prior to the annual ARCSE meeting. We approved our budget, which will include increases in our membership fees. The Board concurred with the new dues structure.
These fees will increase on January 1st, 2024. The dues will be as follow:
–Annual dues: increase from $18 to $25
–Annual hard copy newsletter fee: increase from $12 to $15
–Life membership dues:
• Age 75 or older: from $125 to $175
• Age 65 through 74: from $200 to $275
• Age 64 or younger: from $250 to $325
Our Strategic Plan and for ARCSE were finalized and approved at our August 7th board meeting in Des Moines. The Strategic plan charts the course for the direction ARCSE will be taking between 2023–2028. A special thank you to the ARCSE Team that worked on the plan, which included Mary Podoll, Cheryl Simmons, Craig Derickson, Becky Fletcher, and Julie MacSwain. Please review the Strategic Plan and Plan of work documents which are posted on our arcse.org website (https://arcsecommunications.wordpress.com/our-organization/). If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to me.
The 49th annual meeting of ARCSE took place in Des Moines, Iowa on August 7th. This year’s event drew several NRCS retirees and NRCS employees. A special thank you to Mark Jensen, Iowa NRCS retiree and ARCSE Representative, for his role in local arrangements, and to Jack Carlson and Cheryl Simmons who served on the ARCSE committee for planning the event. Please read Mark Jensen’s report of our annual meeting.
A joint Memo of Understanding (MOU) from NRCS Chief Terry Cosby and ARCSE President Julie MacSwain was sent to all employees of NRCS on August 8th. Jerry Bernard, Editor for ARCSE, sent emails to members along with a copy of the signed MOU and our ARCSE directory. Retired conservation employees hold a wealth of institutional knowledge and experience, and members of ARCSE are eager to continue contributing to NRCS’s mission in wisdom of ARCSE’s members and speed up the process of distribution of the Inflation Reduction Act workload across all employees. Please stay tuned for additional details and information about the mentorship program that will be announced in your states in the coming months. A full copy of the MOU is available on our ARCSE website at https://arcse.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/nrcs-arcse-mou-full-signed_final.pdf.
ARCSE is doing what we can to reach out to our members. If you have access to Facebook, please follow us on Association of Retired Conservation Service Employees. And, we have a presence on Flickr. Search for ARCSE Communications. And don’t forget to check our ARCSE website. David Buhland has been working hard to keep this up-to-date for our membership. In closing, I challenge each ARSCE member to give a membership application to those who are newly retired. Let’s push to increase our membership prior to the end of the year before the new membership rates go into effect. Membership has so many benefits, including networking, connectivity, mentorship, life-long learning, socialization, and giving back, to name a few. We also need all of you to continue to provide news from your states for the newsletter. Staying connected and involved in retirement is important for well-being. Cheers to working with you down the road.
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Below is the Email sent from Chief Terry Cosby to all NRCS Employees about the NRCS ARCSE MOU.
NRCS ARCSE MOU full signed_finalDownload
Team NRCS:
By now, many of you have had the chance to invite people in your network to apply to one of NRCS’ recent job postings, and some of you may even have welcomed new members to your teams. Your efforts with recruiting and onboarding are deeply appreciated, and they will help NRCS reach the capacity that we need to serve more customers than ever before through Inflation Reduction Act funding.
Of course, recruiting and hiring new staff is only the beginning of our effort to build up the next generation of NRCS conservation champions. Staff in the NRCS Management and Strategy Deputy Area have been working to build a robust training plan to ensure that new employees can get up to speed as quickly as possible.
As part of that effort, we are proud to announce a partnership that will open mentorship opportunities to new employees through a Memorandum of Understanding between NRCS and the Association of Retired Conservation Service Employees (ARCSE).
Retired conservation service employees hold a wealth of institutional knowledge and experience, and members of ARCSE are eager to continue contributing to NRCS’ mission in their retirements. This partnership ensures that NRCS’ newest hires can benefit from the wisdom of ARCSE’s members, and will speed up the process of distributing the Inflation Reduction Act workload across all employees.
Additional details and information about the mentorship program will be announced in your states in the coming months. We look forward to working together to train the next generation of climate-smart conservation champions.
Terry J. Cosby Julie MacSwain
Chief, NRCS President, ARCSE
ARCSE 