By Karen Alexander

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

Thank you to all Club members who have renewed their membership for 2022! We are grateful for your continued loyalty, commitment, and support, especially while our normal club activities have been postponed or offered only virtually.  Membership renewals are due April 1, 2022.

This year we have many exciting plans for the Club:

  • We intend to get back to in-person Speaker Series at the Ojibway Nature Centre as soon as we are able to. Meanwhile, our Speaker Series will continue online.
  • We will keep hosting “Pop-up” events throughout the County – thank you to all who join these events, it is lovely to see members coming together again! The last event at Jack Miners on March 6 brought together 17 members for about 3 hours. Members enjoyed a lovely day with observations of 13 bird species! Hello Spring!
  • Our Junior Egrets Club is getting 20 backpacks stuffed with nature guides, activities, and a schedule of events!  Thanks to the TD Friends of the Environment, we are able to offer a new program called “Connecting Youth to Local Nature”.  Stay tuned for more information or contact Kory Renaud, Chair of the Junior Egrets Committee.
  • We have a number of new volunteer opportunities and we recently completed a new Organizational Chart (see photo below)  that provides a visual breakdown of all the volunteer roles and Committees we have – we really do quite a lot for a volunteer Club and I am proud of our Membership.
  • We are currently seeking current or new members to fill a few roles:
    • Speaker Series Coordinator
    • Communications Coordinator
    • Volunteer Manager
    • iNaturalist Coordinator
    • Members for the Heritage Committee, the Phragmites Committee, and the Junior Egrets Committee

The Essex County Field Naturalists’ Club is a volunteer-driven Club that could not run without Members stepping into roles and stepping up to help us spread excitement and gratitude for local natural heritage.  If we don’t do this important work to provide the opportunity for people to become acquainted with and to better understand the natural environment in Essex County, who will?

I very much look forward to meeting more of our Membership this year and can’t wait to get back to in-person meetings, events, and projects!

Sincerely,

Karen Alexander, President

Organization chart of roles within the ECFNC. Boxes outlined in red signify vacant/new positions.