Topic

Key Points Raised

Decision/Action

Evaluation committee chair/co-chair 2008

• Carin Perkins has agreed to serve as co-chair of the evaluation committee starting in January 2008.  She is interested in finding indicators for objectives that lack indicators.
• DeAnn asked Lisa to consider continuing as co-chair for one more year (through 2008), to maintain continuity of the committee

Carin Perkins will co-chair the committee in 2008.

Status of Evaluation staff position

The University of Minnesota joint funded Comprehensive cancer control program position has been put on hold until the MDH-based comp cancer program is awarded additional funds from CDC.  The soonest this would happen would be mid-2008.  This is a temporary situation, and both MDH and U of MN staff intend to create a position to support evaluation committee activities in the future. 

There is some money at the University that could be used to support comprehensive cancer initiatives, on a time-limited basis.  If there is work that could be done to support the Alliance through contracts, the U of M comp cancer advisory committee might consider seeking that support.    If there were to be a contract in place to support work of the evaluation committee, there should be informal assessment built into make sure the contracts are going as planned. 

Ideas:

• Do co-chairs need help in terms of meeting summaries, setting up meetings?
• Do task forces ,like colorectal cancer task force or health disparities task force, need help to create project plans? Build process and outcome evaluation into their project plans?   To create logic models?
• Could U of MN hold evaluation trainings? Logic model training?  Using focus groups? 
• Project planning and budget planning meeting?

Co-chairs should think about what they need in terms of administrative support.

DeAnn, Eileen & Julia will bring ideas to the U of M Comp Cancer Advisory council in early September

Meeting Dates/ Frequency in 2007

Next meetings of entire group will be Oct 10 and Dec 20 (every other month)

In 2008, maybe a couple of people will take the lead on a project so that at evaluation committee meetings we report back on tasks?

Identify new evaluation committee members

Catherine Marshall, Melissa Partin, Beth Virnig, and we would like more participation from people working at community based organizations and from outside the metro area.    

Nominations welcome.

Who will follow up with nominees to invite them to join the committee in early 2008?

2007 goals for committee

We should integrate goals across committees and task forces toward benchmarks—all can aim towards the next 2008 summit as the short term goal for project teams to be able to explain to the Alliance what their plans are

We could use the summit to connect people and organizations to ongoing work of the Alliance. What goals does the evaluation committee have for the summit? For 2008?

What is the ideal relationship of the evaluation committee to priority area task forces? Training? Information? Context? Direct coaching related to projects? Requiring evaluation plans?

Possible Goals 2007-2008

1. Develop/seek new indicators (Carin, Mike)
2. Seek new members and transition leadership (Lisa & DeAnn)
3. Revise, carry out, analyze member survey revision (Julia, Lisa, Priscilla, Mike)
4. Conduct evaluation training (Julia)
5. Revise evaluation plan (whole committee)
6. Member tracking/Database (Julia & Liz)

Please read through the evaluation plan before the October meeting.

Student work, Dongsul Kim

This project made it possible to look at community measurement data geographically, using the map as a visual tool.  The data has limitations.

Could we ask more questions of community measurement? Ask Gail Amundsen. how we can best tie into ongoing work of community measurement around interventions.

Mike Malone has an article about mapping he would be willing to share