Recap of May 2024 Discussion
This month's picture is Star Quintero celebrating her success at the Texas Tree Climbing Championship, photo by Sarah Farr, demonstrating the all important "women lifting other women up" by capturing this moment in all of its power.
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Here's a recap of our May discussion:
We discussed the onboarding process - at work and in volunteer roles. What are some especially good onboarding experiences you've had? Were there lessons you learned and took with you for when you onboarded a new employee/volunteer.
Rebecca was calling in from the combined Project Learning Tree (PLT)/Project Wet & Project Wild conference. Project Learning Tree is aimed at school age children, but the activities are a lot of fun, maybe they can be used as ice breakers at networking events.
Kristen graduated!! And has a new job!
We discussed city government structure, particularly in regards to who cares for the trees within the city - both city owned and privately owned.
We discussed how to find climbing training opportunities. It can be hard to offer hands on climbing training due to insurance and liability issues. Even finding a location to host the training can be insurmountable.
This led to a discussion of formal apprenticeship and workforce development. In the US, the USDA Forest Service has provided grants for workforce development so a lot of folks are really interested right now, how can they do it better?
One of our attendees had studied viticulture before getting involved in arboriculture, this led to a discussion of bacterial leaf scorch (BLS) because a lot of the research into BLS has come out of the wine industry. We discussed our experiences with BLS and one member had a tree that was officially diagnosed with BLS (lab tested) and appears to have compartmentalized the infection, giving hope that maybe more trees could survive.
We discussed Canary Palms and their problems with South American Palm Weevil. It isn't a problem all over the US, but has the potential to be devastating to Canary Palms in our landscapes.
We discussed ITCC and the disappointment that the City of Atlanta has been difficult. ISA Staff had a commitment from them to host ITCC but when it came time to sign the papers, they backed out. We're all on hold waiting to find out where ITCC will be this October.
We discussed making people feel comfortable at work - especially underserved communities. This often requires a culture change that has to come from the top.
We talked about food forests and fruit tree maintenance. Some communities have been resistant to food forests because they think it encourages the unhoused population, but also because they see it as a potential source of "mess" - rotting fruit, broken branches, etc.
We discussed the ongoing issue of MMIW - missing or murdered indigenous women. Too often the authorities refuse to take it seriously, stereotyping that the women "just ran away".
Moving on to a lighter topic - TreesROI got their grant!!
We also talked about mother/daughter teams. Many of the women in tree care are training their daughters and working with their daughters and creating companies.
We also talked about how hard it is to keep up with new technology - especially the advances in tree ascent gear.
TCC judges have to spend time educating themselves before events to be sure that competitors are using equipment that meets industry safety standards.
Finally we talked about the importance of having a "postmortem" after all events. A "what went right, what needed improvement, what should we change for next time" meeting. Celebrate the wins and troubleshoot the things that weren't such a win. Be sure to write it up and then share with other folks putting on similar events.
