May 2004 – April 2005
From May 2004 through April 2005, the Officers and Board of Directors held a general business meeting on the first Tuesday of each month at 7:30 p.m. at Powder Valley Nature Center in Kirkwood, Missouri. The July meeting is dedicated to organizing our chapter activities/calendar for the next year.
The Education Committee started off the new school year with a revised set of topics on which we were prepared to give presentations. We talk about birds, butterflies, bats, owls, environment, endangered species, mammals, migration, pond life, backyard habitat and any other topic that teachers request that relates to nature. We started out the year with 11 members on our committee, but 2 of our people were called back to work so we have performed the work with the other 9 members. We have put notes in the newsletter advertising for new members for our committee, but with no luck so far.
We did presentations in both public and private schools with students ranging in ages from 4 to 13 years. We also talked to teachers at special meetings, to garden clubs, and to civic and church groups. We had a display table and craft project for kids at Powder Valley Nature Center to celebrate International Migratory Bird Day. We participated in the Girl Scout Badge Day at Lindbergh High School and guided 16 Junior Girl Scouts in earning their Wildlife Badge. We participated in the Creatures of the Night program at Babler State Park, we did the Bio Blitz in Forest Park, we had a display and craft table at Conservation for Critters at Kirkwood Community Center, and we celebrated Science Day at St. Francis of Assisi School by giving talks to the 2 nd and 3 rd graders. We also did a butterfly presentation for the Corps of Engineers at the River Museum in Alton, Illinois. We gave a training day for teachers and other adults interested in learning the Bird Identification program to use for teaching children. Our presentations have reached about 1,600 children and about 360 adults.
The Finance Committee meets approximately once a month to review and make buy/sell decisions with regard to SLAS investments. Other on-going activities include review of the preliminary annual budget, development of membership application forms and consideration of alternative fund-raising activities.
The committee selected the following recipients for our chapter's 2005 Awards:
St. Louis Audubon Conservation Award--Benjamin Knox, Jr.
St. Louis Audubon Education Award--Judy Tisdale
Outstanding Natural Resource Legislator--William Lacy Clay
Outstanding St. Louis Audubon Volunteer--Vicki Flier
Greater St. Louis Science Fair--winners yet to be chosen (one elementary
student and one secondary student)
The committee has also awarded the following scholarships:
St. Louis Audubon Teacher Scholarship for Audubon Ecology Camp in Maine—
Elizabeth Petersen (Ladue Middle School)
St. Louis Audubon Scholarship in Graduate Studies--Marcos Maldonado Coelho
(PhD student at UMSL) St. Louis Audubon High School Student Scholarship-- Aimee Wegescheide
(Grandview R-2 H.S.)
Our committee also arranged for a presentation about the Audubon Camp in Maine at our January St. Louis Audubon program. Jennifer Smith, a previous camp participant, gave this very informative talk.
F or the fiscal year May 1, 2004 to April 30, 2005, the Bird Trip Committee sponsored 23 birding trips to about 17 different locations. All of our trips were well attended, considering seasonal weather limitations, and were free to all participants whether members of SLAS or not. Twelve different people currently comprise our leadership corps in one capacity or another. All of our trips are listed on the SLAS Web site as well as the WGNSS Web site. In return, we list the WGNSS Sunday trips, which are aimed at the same group of beginners and intermediates as the SLAS trips, on our Web site. We also strive to co-list each other's trips in our respective newsletters.
October 4, 2004 --$614.00 profit (26 customers)
January 5, 2005 -- $246.00 profit (13 customers)
* This number does not include numbers for April 2005 (estimated to be ~71 for
new members and ~2 for transferred members).
May 2005 will conclude the fourth full year of the Society's renewed commitment to monthly programs. The format offers members and non-members alike a very informal opportunity to learn more about the organization as well as to hear an exciting and often educational speaker from a conservation or related organization outside the Society.
Several new ideas and a nearly standardized schedule combined to generate a total attendance of nearly 450. At the end of just 4 years, our total attendance will be nearly 1,500. One new idea was the expansion of our existing partnerships, that include the Webster Groves Nature Study Society and the Eastern Missouri Group of the Sierra Club, by adding a third joint effort with the St. Louis Chapter of the North American Butterfly Association. In addition, we went a bit beyond the standard fare of environmental topics to a workshop on posture and spine health, especially targeted to the standing, strained positions and slow walking indicative of bird watching.
Topics covered throughout the year also included the great sandhill crane migration, the Audubon camp at Hog Island in Maine, preserving forest biodiversity while harvesting trees, wetland restoration in St. Louis County and least tern conservation along the Mississippi. Organizations represented by those speakers included the Missouri Botanical Garden, the Pioneer Forest, St. Louis County Parks and the Missouri Department of Conservation. We are all very pleased with the response this year, extend tremendous thanks to all our speakers and are truly looking forward to next year.
The Suburban Journals South Group and the Alton Telegraph are planning increased coverage of outdoor activities in the coming months. The Telegraph 's night city editor, Steve Whittington, is planning a page on birding, and the South Journals have committed themselves to an outdoors page. Both efforts will provide St. Louis Audubon and, in particular, its publicity committee with greater opportunities to place both large and small stories.
We anticipate the two newspapers will need stories on both major and minor events involving St. Louis Audubon. We should have a much easier time placing announcements for events such as bird walks as well as feature stories on subjects such as International Migratory Bird Day. We would hope that exposure in the Journals and the Alton Telegraph attracts the attention of other media. During the previous year the publicity committee, composed of Jack Cowan and Greg Barnett, had a modest string of successes. A story on the Christmas Bird Count ran January 1 in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch , and a column on the count ran December 29 in the six South Journal newspapers. A press release on the annual Audubon dinner ran in the South Journal 's six newspapers and the Chesterfield and Meramec Journals .
A story on Kenn Kaufman, featured speaker at the dinner, ran in the South Journals and the Alton Telegraph . We tried to interest Bill McClellan in writing a column, but were unsuccessful. We still hope the Post will write a story about Kaufman and credit St. Louis Audubon with bringing him to St. Louis. A column on the St. Louis Important Bird Areas ran March 23 in the South Journals . The committee put together a list of fax and e-mail numbers for 4 local television stations, KTVI, KMOV, KPLR, KSDK; radio stations, KMOX, KFUO, KWMU, KDHX; and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch , Alton Telegraph and Suburban Journals . The list is the start toward building a file of personal contacts that we hope we can rely on to place more articles and announcements, particularly in the electronic media. In the coming year, the committee intends to expand its activities to ensure that press releases are sent out for every major St. Louis Audubon Society and local conservation activity in the area.