Commission Hires Review Manager
We are pleased to announce that Sigrid Pickering will join the Commission staff as review manager in early February. She will work closely with commissioners on the evaluation of accreditation applications. Many of you know Sigrid from her work at Sweet Water Trust. In her years of service to Sweet Water Trust she worked with many land trusts and developed skills in land conservation and evaluating applications that will be invaluable to the Commission. She previously served as the acting director of stewardship for Historic New England. We are pleased to welcome her to our team.

Application Comment Period Closes
Thank you to everyone who took the time to read through the draft application for accreditation and submit comments. We received many thoughtful comments through our online survey, in writing and in the detailed review of the application by several land trusts in different parts of the country. We want to thank those land trusts for taking the time to complete parts of the application, compile attachments and send us an evaluation of their experience.

Your comments will make a difference. Over the next few weeks the Commission will analyze all of the comments received and use them to edit the draft application that will be extensively tested in the 2007 pilots. Early next year we will post a summary of the feedback we received and how the Commission responded.

And the Winner Is....
Congratulations to Kathleen Landel at Whidbey Camano Land Trust (WA) who won a free basic registration to the National Land Conservation Conference: Rally 2007 in Denver, CO. A winner was chosen randomly from the comments on the draft application submitted through our online survey.

2007 Pilot Program Update
We received over 50 requests to participate in the 2007 pilot testing program. Initial pilot participants will be selected by the Commission to represent a diversity of land trusts that will provide us with information about the application and review process. There will be two rounds of pilot tests, and the first group will be announced early in 2007.

There were high expectations for the new, independent Land Trust Accreditation Commission when it was incorporated in April. As 2006 comes to a close, it is amazing to reflect on the last nine months and see how far we have come in developing the details of the accreditation program, asking the land trust community for feedback, and being ready to pilot the program in the new year.

Wishing you a happy holiday season!