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Agenda:
Pocono Avian Research Center Board of Directors Meeting August 27, 2018- ONLINE
We have also been invited to do a number of events in the community. One thing that we need is to better promote these events, so that we can help support the organizations that invited us and get more people out to learn about them. Lisa is doing a great job of posting to Facebook, so if you see it and could repost these events it would be great. Also, we could use any additional ideas on how to market these types of events to increase attendance. Finally, we need additional board members for our organization. Would anyone like to work on nominations for additional board members? 5. Education report: we completed a lot of great programs this summer. We did three science programs for the Barrett Friendly Library for the summer program. We have also been invited to do monthly programs for The Nature Conservancy in Long Pond, and finally we have been invited to do monthly programs with the Brodhead Watershed Association water wiser kids program. All of these are in addition to the one-day community events and other birding programs we do. 6. Research report: Our research season ended with a rainy day in August. The season had a lot of schedule problems, but the interns Ty, Gabe, and Luc, held it together and really gave us as much help as they could. We were joined at the end of the season by Stephanie Augustine who is a graduate of Cedar Crest College and is looking for seasonal work in the field. We were grateful for her help. As usual, we provided several research related programs for the Kettle Creek day camp and conservation camp. In the fall, we are getting ready for Owl banding season, and we have schedule education programs on Friday nights in October and November. Come out and join us any night. 7. New Business: Please let me know if there is any new business to discuss. 8. Meeting adjourned
3 Comments
Lisa
9/2/2018 01:39:18 pm
Hi all,
Diane
9/4/2018 10:32:44 am
Hi, Just now got to reading this. I also vote to approve the minutes for Sept. 10, 2017 and Feb. 4, 2018. I had looked at some legal stuff for non-profits earlier this year. It seems that the folks out here don't have lawyers, because they haven't needed one. They do however highly recommend that you get familiar with all the laws pertaining to non-profits. I'll check my notes and send you some links. I was going to start reading through them but then got busy with the field season myself. Something to consider for getting the word out for your events, can you link the announcements on your website to other websites hosting the events? That may draw a little more traffic to your website (and theirs). See if you can get it so that it opens their link in a new window instead of taking the reader completely away from your page. Also, I'll look for your page on Facebook and share the posts. Here in NV, we have a "Birding Nevada" FB page where birders post their sightings. It seems that if you have a local social media page (or pages) for your area that gets seen by local birders, that you could post your events there as well. I will be headed to the Rio Grande Bird Festival in TX later this year. I may be able to drop some flyers/postcards for you on a table if you want ;) Just email or mail me some material. Although I wasn't really a part of the communications team, when I volunteered at Lindsay Wildlife Museum, they had a (paid) staff person that would coordinate their events with the local tv news stations/newspapers. It might be something you could pursue. Birds in flight or in hand are always fun to see on camera. The local newpaper had a columnist here named Gary Bogue, who wrote about urban wildlife encounters, sort of an advice columnist for people curious about what to do with a racoon in the yard, a bird fallen out of a nest, etc. So he was the obvious person to contact here for wildlife type events. I don't know if you have something like that and maybe newspapers aren't so much in fashion anymore. Maybe one of the kids is more up to speed on youtube blogs, which you could probably publish yourself. I think websites even have the option to add a blog page - check yours. I think part of the trick to getting the word out is to get your name on a site that already draws a lot of views. For example, our taiko group does not really advertise, but we pick up a fair number of gigs (and then we are seen around town) because our group was on the local performing arts center website. I can pick John and Elisabeth's brains for the process they went through to coordinate the Great Basin Bird Observatory conference, which is a local conference they are hoping to hold maybe once every 5 years. They based their conference setup on the Western Field Ornithologists conference - social snacks the first night, local bird field trips in the morn with volunteer drivers and bird guides in rental vans, talks in the afternoon, and a dinner with a special talk from a better known birder (costs extra), book auction from books donated by members and a raffle from goods donated by local companies (casinos, restaurants, stores, artists, donations from members, etc). I'll ask them how they advertised, but Elisabeth is currently traveling so it may take a little while for me to get an answer. I'm excited to hear about your new space. Wish I could make it to your meeting in September. I'll be filling in on a bird banding station here so can't travel this month. Leave a Reply. |
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December 2018
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