2024 Master Forest Owner Volunteer Candidate Training

Virtual Training March 26 – May 7 (plus a one-day field sessions in early June)

Thank you for your interest in serving other woodland owners as a Master Forest Owner volunteer.  Your commitment to serve as a volunteer is admirable.  Following is the agenda for the training.  The training is 7 weeks long, with online weekly assignments and online weekly discussions. You will need to plan for about 4 hours to complete the assignments of video and reading. The weekly discussions will last an hour. Regional one-day field sessions will be scheduled in early June at least a couple locations in NY. 

There are four components to the training. Details are in the following agenda.  Direct links to resources are provided at https://canvas.cornell.edu/courses/40112

1. Program sessions describe details of the program.
2. Self-study sessions are paired with 5 topical areas. These topics are important to provide you a broad foundation in woodland management. Please complete the “assigned content” before the online session. The assigned content should take about 3 hours. As you complete visits with other woodland owners, feel free to share links to these resources.
3. Topical discussions You will need to prepare for the discussions by completing the self-study, making a list of any questions you have from the self-study, making a list of the experiences you have had with that topic, and being ready to participate in a discussion about situations you might have as a volunteer that relate to that topic.
4. There will be regional one-day field sessions to teach skills that aren’t taught well through Zoom. You will ideally participate in at least one of these field sessions. Dates and locations TBA based on the locations of the participants.

Schedule Summary

After the training, if you have not previously had an MFO volunteer visit your property, please request a visit from the link at www.CornellMFO.info  This will also help you understand the type of information provided via a landowner seeking a visit. The purpose is for you to experience “a visit.”   Your Regional Director will alert you to visit requests which will allow you to shadow an existing MFO volunteer.

We appreciate your support and effort as future volunteers, and additional support from Cornell’s College of Agriculture and Life Science, Cornell Cooperative Extension, USDA-NIFA, and the Wentorf Foundation.