Page 16 - Georgia Forestry - Issue 1 - Winter 2022

“We give people the space to
access our content at their
convenience and in their way.”
– Matt Hestad, VP of Engagement at the GFA
training, says Hestad. During virtual conferences, the association created a hotline with a dedicated staff person to assist participants who had trouble with access. “This should not be the person running the event,” Hestad notes.
Technology allows the GFA to maxi- mize its resources to increase efficiency, he says. While the GFA once met with leg- islators for coffee in downtown Atlanta during the General Assembly session, now, it can set up Zoom calls with legis- lators while they are in their districts.
“It’s easier to set up a video call. We could have spent months trying to set up an in-person meeting with Sen. Raphael Warnock, but we had a virtual meeting instead, and this allowed our members to join the discussion,” Hestad says.
High-Tech Tools to Prompt Discussion
The Georgia SFI Implementation Com- mittee’s budget and planning meetings also pivoted to a virtual format in 2020 and 2021, says Cook. Committee members who live and work hours away from the meeting site often prefer the virtual option.
“Foresters like to be out in the woods. Our members enjoy hunting and fishing. They’re not indoor folks. But some can be reluctant to embrace virtual technology and open up on Zoom calls. We don’t want anyone to be shy during these business meetings,” he says.
To generate discussion and debate during virtual meetings, the committee utilizes tools like live polling. Cook posts a question, reveals the group’s responses during the meeting, and then asks partic- ipants to discuss their different opinions.
“It’s hard to pay attention to multiple conversations in a virtual format,” he says. “Some people are just more com- fortable direct-messaging me as the meeting facilitator, but that makes it even more challenging to juggle ongoing conversations.”
In virtual meetings, a creative touch keeps attendees engaged in the discus- sion, Hestad says. For the GFA’s event with Sen. Warnock, the association filmed several members asking questions ahead of time. The Senator watched the video and offered responses.
“It was more like a TV show. You can use a combination approach with prerecorded videos and slides, and also create a virtual room with a moderated discussion,” he says. “You don’t want to plan a virtual meeting that people don’t
logger education programs each year. The Georgia committee is directly respon- sible for the program’s introductory workshop, while the committee coordi- nates with member forest-product mills, technical colleges and others to provide continuing logger education events.
In early 2020, the committee, which consists of members from 32 forestry companies and 12 supporting organi- zations, halted all in-person meetings, including its Master Timber Harvester workshops, then adapted them to virtual formats, says Chase Cook, the program coordinator, who works out of the UGA’s Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources in Athens.
“We decided we couldn’t afford to stop and wait around. Forestry is an essential industry in Georgia. Forestry companies never took a break, but they all implemented rigorous rules and COVID safety protocols. They couldn’t stop production, because the demand was still high, including paper products for shipping pharmaceuticals to home remodeling projects. Would the pandemic be over in three months? Six months? We didn’t know. We didn’t want to put our training programs on hold indefinitely, so we decided to invest in virtual options,” says Cook.
The SFI’s training program usually begins with a two-day workshop. To avoid subjecting loggers to a two-day- long Zoom call, the committee developed an on-demand virtual training platform for meeting the training requirements. Cook shipped camera equipment to trainers to create videos or air live presen- tations and reached out to neighboring state SFI implementation committees, including South and North Carolina, for relevant training content and advice.
Within five months, the committee pulled together a complete training library and worked with SFI Inc. and Michigan State University to launch the virtual training system. Over 150 loggers and foresters completed the
on-demand introductory training in the last 12 months. Thanks to similar efforts from collaborating providers, continu- ing-education completion rates among the program’s active Master Timber Harvesters remain about the same as before the pandemic shut down in-per- son events. Due to this success and the positive feedback from participants, the committee will continue to offer virtual training options in the future.
“I am very proud of what we accom- plished,” Cook says. “We are happy to say that we never had to take a break from our essential operations, including our logger education responsibilities.”
Flexibility Is Key
On-demand and virtual meetings offer flexibility to accommodate unpredict- able schedules. On the day of a scheduled meeting or event, a forester may realize that they need to be in their mill, says Matt Hestad, vice president of engage- ment at the Georgia Forestry Association (GFA). The GFA’s events include an Annual Conference, Forestry Day at the Capitol, and regular advocacy and educational events for members.
COVID-19 caused the GFA leader- ship and staff to adapt the association’s content for both live and on-demand access, and they plan to continue this hybrid approach even as Georgia emerges from the pandemic.
“We give people the space to access our content at their convenience and in their way,” says Hestad, who has been with the GFA since 2011. “For our American Forestry Conference, we approached it almost like a TV show. We told attendees, ‘You can catch it live, ask questions and interact with speakers and other attend- ees. But if you can’t, you can still access the content later on.’ COVID changed how we think about education and mem- bership value.”
To adapt successfully, the GFA invested in technology upgrades and staff
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