As I showcased some of our board and chair members activities last month, I mentioned more to come. We have very active and dedicated members that help provide our chapter with a variety of services and information.
Have you noticed how wonderful our monthly newsletter is? Every month we get a synopsis of activities and some learning facts about birds in our newsletter. The editor and publisher of this document is Ruth Neese, PHD. She is a past president and advocate for birds. She is a board member of the Treasure Coast Wildlife Center (with her husband, Ed Bowes) and she creates our newsletters all by herself. She works full-time for IRSC as a Professor in the Nursing School. She is so busy that she is unable to attend most of our meetings, but she is always there in spirit. We do appreciate her commitment to providing us with updates and teaching us about local birds. Thank you Ruth!
If you have enjoyed and learned a lot from our speakers this season, you can thank Kevin Hinkle. He took over the Program Chair from me this year. He has had to learn how to find speakers and book them, keeping them happy and informed about our meetings. It is wonderful to have variety and interesting programs. If you get a chance, let Kevin know how you like the programs, and offer any advice for new speakers as he is already working on next year’s lineup. Kudos to Kevin!
At our March meeting we will not only have a great speaker, but we will be awarding three cash honorariums to local students who had projects in the S.T.E.M. contest this school year. Our Science Advisor, Matthew Anderson, and member Kirk Fusco, volunteered to be judges for this contest and they chose the three award winners for our Annual Grace Stock Conservation Awards. These students and their families are invited to our meeting to show their project and give us a summary of their objectives. By doing this our chapter encourages young scientific students to work on conservation ideas and it promotes our commitment to advocate for habitat conservation for birds. This will be a highlight of our meeting and it is my hope you will join us to see and meet these wonderful students. We want to thank Matthew and Kirk for taking time to do this important event.
As you can see, we are a working team and everyone is doing their part to make our chapter the best it can be. Soon we will be holding elections for officers and Board Members at Large. If you are interested in serving and joining our team, please let us know as we will open the nominations to the floor at our next meeting. We would love to have you in our circle! See you on March 5th.
— Ellen Lynch