"Why Don't We Do It In Our Sleeves?" (read down)

Hi Everyone,

The full Staff Council meeting on April 2nd was brief but to the point. We received the news that the revised by-laws that we forwarded to the administration have passed muster with Legal Services and been signed by VP Gower and President Vogel. So the new by-laws are now official!

Other items mentioned for distribution were:
*OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Act) has designated April 28th as Workers Memorial Day to remember workers who have died or been injured on the job. ( Wikipedia entry, Information and History page from the AFL/CIO, Workers Memorial Day Poems and Tributes )

*The April Staffline is now available online at http://www.uvm.edu/~stffcncl/staffline/April2008.pdf.
Along with reports from several Staff Council committees, it contains sign-up information for a bus trip to Boston in June, and news about the timing of the upcoming Staff Council election seasons. It's rumored to be getting a "new look" next month too, due to modernizations and upgrades, so we'll all see the debut together when the May issue comes out.

*Benefits Fair: May 2nd, 7 am - 5 pm in the Memorial Lounge, Waterman Building.

*Way to Go! Commuter Challenge May 5-9, 2008. UVM is an active participant; learn more and/or register at www.waytogovt.org.

On the Agenda for Next Month:
Barbara Johnson, Assoc. VP for Human Resources has been invited to attend the next Staff Council meeting on May 4th to address questions from Council members as well as provide an update on current Human Resources initiatives. Please try to attend if you can; it could be quite interesting.

Other news specific to the Libraries unit:
The Pandemic Influenza Planning presentation meant for the 3/26 Libraries Forum had to be canceled due to illness; we hope very much that they'll be able to reschedule. Irony aside, there is a lot of information on the above linked website, and specifics from earlier forums (including the Powerpoint) linked here. One highlight is the streamed video of Recommended Coughing Techniques, available in English, English with captions, Spanish, and American Sign Language. If any video deserves to be "viral", this is the one.

And Because it's the Season:
The Center for Research on Vermont presents Research-In-Progress Seminar #212:

The Taste of Maple Syrup: Past, Present, and Future
by Amy Trubek, Nutrition and Food Sciences, UVM
Thursday, April 10, 2008 4:30 p.m., Memorial Lounge, Waterman Building

"Maple syrup makes the Green Mountains edible. When we pour this thick, sweet liquid over our pancakes, we are bringing the much loved Vermont landscape into our houses—we get to taste the Green Mountains. Maple syrup is a wild food, harvested first by the Abenakis, then by early colonists, and now by farmers, homesteaders, and others. Maple syrup links us to our landscape, but what does it taste like? We will explore the tastes of Vermont maple syrup and why Vermont’s maple syrup could be the first of many foods that define our future tastes. The event will conclude with a tasting of syrups from different parts of Vermont."
For more information check out the website linked above!

Well, April is here, the geese are headed North, and the weather is stuck on the spin cycle. Somewhere in the weekend there might be some sunshine, so try to enjoy it if you can,

Joanne