Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

The 9^th meeting of the WERA 1012 Committee convened at the YMCA of the Rockies in Estes Park, CO by Chair Steve Hilberg. This year’s meeting was organized around three major themes: Recruiting and Retention, Sustainability, and Demonstrating Value. These are three areas that are critical to the continuing success of volunteer networks.

The meeting began with a short welcome presentation by Michael Harrington, WERA 1012 Advisor from Colorado State University.

 Nolan Doesken from the CoCoRaHS National Office provided the annual status report for the past year. This past year has been characterized by a series of ups and downs. CoCoRaHS now has enough spatial and temporal coverage to be able to do some climate analysis. International expansion (Virgin Island, Bahamas) has presented some challenges. He mentioned that people still have trouble understanding how and how much used the data are (pointing to how we need to do a better job of demonstrating value). Data QC faltered about mid-year due to the departure of the person hired to perform QC (in addition to volunteers who QC data). This was resolved in early January when a new person was hired. Federal education funds have sustained CoCoRaHS in recent years (NOAA and NSF) but these major funding streams are ending. Nolan received many calls asking “are we going to make it” from higher-ups in federal and state agencies. The CoCoRaHS “Five for CoCoRaHS” fundraising this year was the best yet. Contributions from volunteers comprised about 25 percent of CoCoRaHS funding this year.

 An analysis of participation trends indicate that the 12-month running average of signups has gradually declined over the last year. Active signups have also declined. About one third that sign up do not end up participating, and this has been fairly consistent from year to year. The

12-month running average of observers making last report in a month is increasing, indicating some increasing participation. CoCoRaHS growth trend is negative over about the last year. We have to attract about 4,000 new observers each year to maintain the number of reporting observers.

 A highlight of the meeting was a presentation by Anne Ju Manning and Kimberly Stearn, Department of Public Relations, Colorado State University, “Communicating with Millennials: Social Media and Other Tactics”. CoCoRaHS participants are heavily weighted toward the 50+ age demographic and many do not engage in social media. This presentation provided key information for CoCoRaHS coordinators on effectively using social media to generate interest in CoCoRaHS and potentially recruit new observers.

 A second presentation related to recruiting and retention,” Engaging Local Media about CoCoRaHS” was given by Ryan Hanrahan, a meteorologist with WVIT-TV in West Hartford, CT and a CoCoRaHS observer.

 Katie Laro of MetStat, Inc. gave a presentation about a prototype for a low-cost electronic weighing rain gauge. The project is being developed in conjunction with a Mechanical Engineering Master’s student at CSU, and was the recipient of funding as the 2016 Electrical and Computer Engineering Senior Design Project. The gauge will have n o moving components to break or fail. The design concept is to fir a weighing mechanism to the bottom of a standard CoCoRaHS rain gauge. It is being designed to work in all weather conditions, measure all types of precipitation in real-time (liquid equivalent), and send reports to users and cloud servers wirelessly through WIFI and the Internet. They are now in the process of assembling the rest of the design team. They expect to report on progress at next year’s WERA 1012 meeting.

 Committee reports were presented for the following: Data Quality Assurance/Quality Control, Collaboration, Recruitment and Retention, Coordinator Support, Innovation and Development, Training and Education, and Sustainability. Partner reports were given by the National Weather Service Coop program, the National Centers for Environmental Information (Climate), the PRISM Group, and CoCoRaHS Canada. There were updates from CoCoRaHS headquarters staff and extended discussion with them on issues related to the program, including the new CoCoRaHS soil moisture measurement.

 On the last morning meeting participants developed a prioritized to-do list for the coming year. The goal was to assemble a to-do list of action items that can be addressed by the WERA 1012 committee and perhaps completed in the coming year. This is important to maintain the momentum from the meeting and continuity for the next year.