As always, the question is "How many CFE credits do I get?"

Not all continuing education opportunities are evaluated in advance for continuing forestry education credits. This is in part because many people who organize events do not know that people out there like you might be interested in getting forestry credits.

Because of the flexibility of the system, you have several alternatives:

1. Prior to the event, send a copy of the program information to Northam Parr, the Continuing Forestry Education coordinator for the New England SAF. He can evaluate the program and assign credits. See:

http://forest.fnr.umass.edu/foresterlicense/texts/assigning%20credit.htm

for more information.

2. Prior to the event, Send a copy of the program information to the Massachusetts Forester License Board - Tom Ryan is the secretary. He can assign credits.

Tom Ryan, Service Forester

Secretary, MA Forester Licensing Board

Department of Conservation and Recreation

1048 North Road Westfield, MA 01085

phone: 413-532-6872 ext. 402

Tom.Ryan@state.ma.us

3. Prior to the event, contact the organizers, ask about forestry credit, and suggest they contact one or both of the above people (they may or may not be interested in doing this, depending on how much they care about forestry- but if events are advertised in advance as having pre-approved credits, it may serve as a marketing tool, to increase attendance)

4. AFTER YOU ATTEND THE EVENT, you may keep a record of your attendance at the event, and submit the evidence and program information for evaluation after the fact. Either Northam Parr or Gordon Boyce can evaluate activities that you have ALREADY ATTENDED. Thus, you do not NEED to have them evaluated in advance, nor do you actually need to know how many credits they are worth. Eventually, you will need to know, when you assemble your portfolio of continuing education evidence to submit for re-licensing.

In general, the rule of thumb for assigning credits apparently is one credit for each contact hour (excluding breaks, lunch, etc). SAF evaluates events in a slightly different way: they assign one hour for each hour of indoor "classroom" contact, but evaluate field hours on a 2-to-1 basis - i.e., two field trip hours = one credit hour. All programs need to be officially evaluated, however. You can't simply assign hours on your own. But this rule of thumb may be helpful for your own calculations.