Pam,  thanks for writing about this!  I am hoping Melissa will have the official write up soon. 

I, too, thought the meeting went very well.  We had a nice sized group, and the agenda worked out really well with having enough time to cover each item but not too much time.  

I know Melissa is doing the "official" write up, but based on my recollection, the three areas that came out of the morning discussion that people wanted to focus on were:

1. training opportunities2. better communication between DFI leaders, DFI groups, and individual DFAers3. connecting people/groups/campaigns to resourcesHere were some of the specific action items -- which, of course, starts off with the training you mentioned:TRAINING1. Try to get a DFA Training Academy session in Springfield in fall of 2007. Pam Gronemeyer will be heading up that effort.2. Try to add an optional "lobby day" training to the Springfield DFA training for either the Monday after or Friday before.  Tim Bagwell will follow up on this.3. Get our members to attend a training that Christine is organizing via GCC on how to run field.  Christine will let us know when that is planned. 4. Organize a conference call with DFA leaders from other states who have successfully grown their groups about how our groups can increase our membership (as well as asking our group leaders to share their success stories).  Then document the ideas and make them available via our web site. I will put this together, probably for March.COMMUNICATIONThere were several ideas here, mostly revolving around better use of the tools we already had, including our web site, the yahoo group, the conference calls, Blog for America, and DFA Link.  One suggestion was perhaps doing two conference calls a month -- one of which would be for leaders and liaisons only, and one of which would be a DFI/DFA FAQ session for new group leaders or people interested in possibly starting a group.  Anyway, I was not part of this breakout group so I am less familiar with what was discussed.  SHARING RESOURCESWe did not establish action items here except the idea that the "preferred vendors" list could be on our website, and that people's skills could be added to their DFA Link profile (or also be on our web site). Anyway, I plan to put together a full list of recommendations for the liaisons to vote on at the February meeting.  All in all it was a great meeting!Sandra