Words from the Chair...
I can't believe we are alreadyat the end of June, and although we just finished our Staff Recognition Week activities, believe it or not, we are already looking ahead and talking about next year! While it is fresh in your mind and ours, if there is something you would like to see done differently for next year, please let us know--the best way to do this is mentioned later in the Newsletter.
By now, I hope everyone is aware of the new ruling by the Board of Curators to allow dependents and spouses of University Staff to attend classes for half price. This is an issue all of the councils have been working on for a long time, so I hope you can recognize this as something positive your council has done besides the Staf Appreciation Week activities. If you have other issues, however big, let us know and we will take them to the VP's and President Floyd for future consideration. This is the only was they know what staff wants.

With the budget issues making the immediate future look gloomy, folks might not be thinking about their long term future, but if you are or think it's time that you do, we would like to invite you to our August SAC meeting. We will have a representative from MetLife who will come and talk to us about the retirement benefits we have here at the University and talk about how he can help you meet your specific and individual future goals, and how they will affect you and your family. The meeting will be location and time will be announced at a later date, and as all SAC meetings, this will be open to all UM System staff.

Election time is also coming up--election of Staff Council members that is. If you know of someone who you would like to see on the council, or if you would like to yourself, you will have an opportunity to let us know in the upcoming months.

Staff Recognition Week News...
Trivial Pursuit:
Our first event was a wonderful success! We had a record of 23 teams, and total of 171 participants. This is the most we have ever had and it looks like this event will continue to grow! Use of the overhead projector helped folks to see the questions us as well as hear them read, and a lot of players mentioned that this was a big improvement. Next year, we will also have the answers up there when it is time for them to be read. Our top three teams:

The team who came in last place, as always, was the Information and Computing Services " Bit Buckets, " consisting of: Tammy Trader, Loretta Lowery, Ken England, Loretta Crane, Tony Rivera, Greg Van Hove, Kristie Sapp, and yours truely, me! Proving once again that computer geeks don't get out much! There is some talk about letting the last place winners pick one of the categories for the next year, and then we MIGHT stand a chance.

Awards Luncheon:
I hope everyone enjoyed this event. It is the highlight of the week for me! The food was wonderful and the award winners were well deserving! Here is the list of awards for Years of Service:

Our Recognition Awards Winners:
Service and Support Semi-Finalist: Lepha Crockett
Service and Support Finalist: Carolyn Sue McCubbin

Administrative Professional Semi-Finalist: Beth Asbury
Administrative Professional Finalist: Tracy Martinez

Administrator Award: Randy Wiemer

President's Award Winner: Rhonda Turner

Staff and Retiree Picnic:
Well, we actually got rained out!! It's the first time I can remember that happening, tho, and since we had the church on stand by, it all worked out just fine! In fact no one was bothered by ants or flys!! And the food was still wonderful! We could also hear Andy giving out the door prizes better, too. Don't get me wrong, I'll take a sunny Missouri day over an inside event any day, but we sure did make great use of an otherwise yucky day!!

I do have one question, for you folks, tho. Those of you who are vegetarians, I wondered if you found the picnic menu satisfying--did you find enough to eat? Did anyone stay away because of the menu? While everything is fresh in our minds, we want to talk about what we can change to make things better next year, so please let us know.

Food Drive:
As you may know, we had containers in several of the UM System Buildings to benefit the Central Missouri Food Bank . We collected a total of 240 pounds of food, and a $100 cash donation! This amount will feed a lot of hungry people in Boone and surrounding counties.

T-Shirt Sales: We sold total of 37 shirts to staff members and I hope everyone liked the pretty Logo that Karen's son did for us! We also gave T-shirts to the Trivial Pursuit 1st Place winners and had a few extra to sell in case someone decided later they wanted one. We even had 3 left over for the Wacky Hat Contest!

Wacky Hat Contest! We had several brave contestants! Among them were: Susan Burns, Tami Hoskins, Nilufer Joseph-Tipton, and myself. The winners were judged by applause, and won SAC T-shirts! Since none of the council members can remember the winners at this printing (!), we will have them on the web site as soon as we get the pictures loaded, which I hope will be soon.

Staff Awareness Issues...
A staff member mentioned to me that the grounds around some of the buildings is beginning to suffer due to the cut backs of the ground crews. She wondered if this was an issue SAC could address. I'm afraid the only was we can address this, however, is to encourage staff members who do still have jobs, to be aware of their surroundings and help keep our grounds as well kept as we can. I am not suggesting that we come in on the weekend and mow the lawn, but we have a very big campus, and the grounds people we do have, have a lot of work to do and a lot of ground to cover and I don't think they should have to clean up after smokers who cannot put their cigarettes in the containers provided for them. Some buildings also have picnic tables outside which is a luxury for people who love to get outside to eat, but we also need to be careful of our trash and keep these area neat and clean, so we can continue to enjoy them. I put this in the Staff Awareness section to remind the Staff to just be AWARE of what they are doing to our campus!

May Service Awards...
Congratulations to the following UM-System Staff members who have attained these milestones of service!
20 Years of Service
Vivian J. Mason, CM-TCRC-Mexico

15 Years of Service
Sherry J. Loyd, MOREnet

10Years of Service
Tanjela R. Brooks, UMSL Procurement Services

5 Years of Service
Hope C. Bynum, Southeast Region-ANR
Tammy Gillespie, Statewide-Youth
Peter Greenwell, MOREnet
Michael F. Kenny, Employee Benefits
Kristina L. Sapp, UM Information and Computing Srvs.

June Service Awards...
15 years of Service
David J. Sheahen, Facilitates Planning

10 Years of Service
Andrew Mcallister, IT Systems Support

5 Years of Service
Eric L. Anderson, MOREnet
Bryan C. Cleek, MOREnet
Phyllis W. Hawk, Secretary Board of Curators
James E. Long, MOREnet

Editor's Corner!
Staff Advisory Council meetings are open to all UM System Staff. Meeting times are 9:00am-11:00am the second Wednesday of the month. The locations are posted on our website on the "Events Calendar." Our website is by now familiar to everyone, I hope, but we add things all the time, so give it a look again. We will be doing some redesigning in the future, and hope to have pictures of the Staff Appreciation Week Events up there soon!! To see additional pictures, click on the refresh button on the toolbar and the picture will change. If you have any questions about the Newsletter, or the Staff Advisory Council, please send me an email!
--Donna Barnes

P.S. Thanks, to all the folks who have kept my son and our family is your thoughts and prayers. It has been a long month since his truck accident on June 1st, but he is recovering nicely from his injuries and is scheduled to come home on July 1st to continue recovering at home, from his broken pelvis. He will be in a wheel chair for a couple more months until he can put weight on his legs, and begin trying to walk again. He is very anxious to come home and we are too, altho my work load will change dramatically again!!