Like so many organizations your Athol Bird and Nature Club held its first virtual annual meeting on November 11th. If you missed it you can find the recording in the webinar section of our new and improved website. It was great to hear from some of our most active members telling us, in their own words, what motivates them to be involved in ABNC activities.
I know we all miss our fun in-person meetings and they will return. But not just yet,. As the Covid-19 pandemic surges across the country we will do all in our power to keep our members safe as we develop new tools to stay connected to nature and each other.
In the annual meeting, you heard about the habitat garden, field trips, The Geology Division, and the “Quarry”, This new website, Webinars, and kids programs. While the Center is closed we have been working in small groups, masked and keeping distant, to do a lot of needed upkeep to the Center. Walls have been painted, the floors have been professionally cleaned and refinished, and the Quarry team has been labeling and sorting specimens. With this work wrapping up it will be time to rebuild the exhibits and get the Center ready for a partial opening hopefully in the spring or summer.
If you have an interest in putting the Center back together cleaning specimens and refilling the exhibit cases. let us know. Ernie Leblanc is heading up this task so connect with Ernie at lebroyal@aol.com.
Spreading our wings – Where are we going from here? First we will continue to have a limited number of in-person field trips with a maximum of 8 people wearing masks, not carpooling, and not sharing optical equipment etc. The annual Christmas Bird Count will be held on December 19th with some new Covid-19 restrictions and forgoing the breakfast gathering and evening tally. A virtual tally will take place in the evening and all are invited to join us for some holiday stories and cheer. More on that in a future post.
Athol Bird and Nature Club came out early in embracing the Zoom webinar format buoyed by a grant from the New England Grassroots Environmental Foundation. The webinar series has been a huge success reaching up to one hundred participants on more than one occasion. We have heard from many folks that they appreciate hearing from energetic high-quality scientists and naturalists from the comfort of their own homes. So with this in mind how do we incorporate this enthusiastic support in a post-pandemic world? The ABNC Board has decided to remake our meeting room into a digital studio. With your help, we will invest in a new permanently mounted projector, speakers, and wireless microphones. This coupled with a good laptop will allow us to continue webinars as we are doing now, but in the future to allow a hybrid of in-person speakers and audience and able to stream the webinars live across to our remote members.
Fall Fund Raiser – Spreading our Wings – Donate Now
ABNC is excited to update our audio-visual equipment to allow for improved, high-quality in-house presentations and an extended offering of virtual events. We appreciate your generous help in making this happen!
