In February the Regional Fisheries Enhancement Group program had its first ever training retreat. This retreat was an attempt to teach each other about what we do as individual groups in our own regions. The South Puget Sound Salmon Enhancement Group was our host for the weekend. The retreat began with a tour of some of South Sound's restoration sites, including a visit to the Kennedy Creek Salmon Trail.

This trail is a wonderful educational site where the public can observe salmon spawning and learn about salmon habitat. The rest of the weekend was spent at a University of Washington research facility called Pack Forest nestled in the trees near the base of Mount Rainier.

The two primary training topics at the retreat were Volunteer Coordination and Project Management. These topics were decided on by the 14 groups as top priorities. The training retreat provided a formalized method for us to swap information about what works (and what doesn't work) in our regions of the state in hopes that we can all improve what we do by sharing with each other. Three staff members from SFEG attended. We all felt it was a successful weekend event and really enjoyed the opportunity to network with other individuals working with other communities and salmon issues around the state. Some staff members were surprised to discover how different some RFEG's are from what we do here in the Skagit Watershed while still working towards the same goal of recovering salmon.

The Regional Fisheries Enhancement Group program hopes to make similar training retreats part of our annual work plan. We've already started to identify new training topics. Communicating and sharing our programs and projects with others around the state on a regular basis will help increase our ability as a whole to work towards the common goal of community based salmon recovery.