Research Advisory Core Meeting
December 8, 2014
Attending: Tim Jardine, Toddi Steelman, Stuart Macmillan, Jennifer Fresque-Baxter, Kiri Staples
Action Items
Task
Review of community coordinator job description for Fort Chipewyan
Draft Terms of Reference for potential Community Project Development Group
and what it might look like, how often to meet, etc. to send around
E-mail to co-investigators re: Research Advisory Core
Examples of trip reports to Kiri
Updates to website (trip report for Fort Smith, update to “Partner” description
section)
Presentation or poster from SRDP and PADEMP for Delta Day in February
Review existing reports generated in each of the deltas to get better sense of
where an inventory of knowledge might be relevant (if at all)
Notify project manager of availability for January meeting
Send minutes to group and post to website
Responsible
Stu
Kiri and Toddi
Toddi
Tim
Kiri
Stu and Jen
Kiri
Tim, Jen, Stu
Kiri
Meeting Minutes
1. Update on activities
 Kiri and Sarah attended PADEMP Steering Committee Meeting in Fort Smith
o Making personal connection was valuable, good interest in project
o Overall PADEMP group sees value in it – well worth time and effort
o Sarah’s project – focusing on Aboriginal Base Flows based on discussions there
 Veronica’s project – will have committee meeting this week
 Research open house event in Fort Resolution and Fort Smith January 26-29th – might be
opportunity for Veronica and Kiri to present during open house style events, as well as arrange
side meetings with core members
o Karl, Tim, Chrystal, Paul, Lorne and Lalita are possibly going as well
 Community coordinators
o Job description from SWEEP adapted for PADEMP to be reviewed – written for Fort
Smith, but could be adapted to Fort Chipewyan
o Timeline for hiring – want someone in place for spring (April 1st) so students can have
someone in place for when they start their work
o For SWEEP, this start date would work well too
2. Governance and communication
a. Governance
 What is the best way to maintain communication? Communicating with a smaller group vs.
larger group?
 There are efficiencies to having a small core group, but also have to make sure everyone is
being represented
 Are other co-investigators ok with it?  Action item: send out a proposal for feedback, have an
open invitation

Important to think about: How do the partnership groups see their role? How do you bring
community representation?  Run the risk of not looking responsive to the community if we
don’t have community partners
 From an administrative standpoint it makes sense to keep things small, but from project
development perspective would it be worthwhile to have people from SKRD, PADEMP and
SRDP that are interested too?
o Could have research advisory team, but also project team with community partners
o Community project development team – reps from each of the deltas talking with Toddi
and/or Kiri
 Having a community partner group would be helpful for making introductions
and linkages across deltas, as well as across different levels of governance
 Could make general call to people in PADEMP and SRDP to look for people
willing to participate in a regular (monthly) meeting
 Action item: Kiri and Toddi will draft Terms of Reference for what this group
might look like, how often to meet, etc. to send around
o Research advisory team: Jen, Stu, Tim and Toddi as research advisory group, but will put
out open invitation
 Aim for meeting once a month
b. Communication
 Can put meeting minutes on website to ensure transparency
 Website
o Need to ensure that there is new content added to it
o E.g. “Trip Report” – pictures, outline of what purpose of trip, what was done, etc.
o Will do this for trip to PADEMP Steering Committee
o Partner section – need to add that partners are an integral part of development, design and
implementation of projects
o Some way of incorporating video into the website some time down the road?
 Newsletter – every 6 months or so in addition to “trip reports”
 One page update once a month or every two months (especially if there hasn’t been a trip
recently)
3. PADEMP Forum
 Still working on format
 2 days of Forum, one day of Steering Committee meeting
 At meeting we will have time for DDN update – unsure if there will be time during Forum
 A poster would be good – will look at ways to incorporate DDN discussion
 Would like to look at ways of bringing youth into Forum, as well as PADEMP as a whole
 Might be helpful to have discussions around what’s happening in SKD to learn from that
experience
o Project is still preliminary, but we could see where timeline is at prior to Forum - want to
present results to SKD community first before presenting it elsewhere
o Would also be helpful to get feedback from our community partners in SKD to share
 Would also be good to set time aside to advance DDN PAD project
 February 10th and 11th for Forum, Steering Committee meeting on the 12th
4. Travel plans
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5.
6.
7.
8.
January 26-29th in Fort Resolution and Fort Smith – Kiri and Veronica might attend
o One page summary of event will be finalized and then sent out
 Toddi in Yellowknife January 14th - take time to talk then too
Budget for projects
 Want to have good representation from DDN, but can’t afford to send everyone to ever meeting
 Getting budget together for Sarah’s project – have to figure out what’s reasonable, might look for
additional funding
Delta Day 2015
 Idea is to have a celebration of deltas – this year want to bring representatives from Charlebois
Community School (leaders and youth) to present and have small group discussions
 Wanted it to be something that could unify deltas, but run into issues of technology and costs in
terms of bringing other people in – have used Skype in the past, but not sure if this works well
 Idea with DDN is to make this a central activity – in 2016 we will be far enough along to bring
people together, but this seems like a long time to wait
 Is February 2015 the right time to bring people together, or do we push it to 2016 and make it
more robust?
o At this stage, it might be too late to have a big event built around making connections,
but 2016 might work if we focus on building relationships and networking throughout the
year (through regular meetings, etc.)
o This year could be framed as series of delta days at this point, by attending PADEMP
Forum, SRDP meetings, etc.
 At SRDP meeting are planning on having participatory mapping event around why the Slave
River matters to people – is there a way to thread that through the different deltas that could help
us understand why these different groups are coming together?
 Would be good to have poster or presentation from PADEMP and SRDP for Delta Day as well
Inventory of knowledge
 Synthesizing knowledge at the beginning of the project – is this still something that is useful
given the time costs?
 With the SKD, one of the first things they did was a gap analysis around published material
 SRDP and PADEMP did similar things with their state of the knowledge reports – could look at
where the gaps are in between those pieces, but not sure if full scale inventory is necessary at this
point
 Before next meeting will look at those pieces and see where we have complementarity and where
we don’t
Next meeting: notify project manager via e-mail of availability based on proposed dates/times for
meeting in January