Desert Rivers Audubon

Minutes of the meeting of Desert Rivers Audubon Society held on 22^nd January 2007

 

 

Present

Mike Rupp – President	Janice Miano – Treasurer	Krys Hammers – Membership Chair
Marion Saffell – Hospitality Chair & Newsletter Editor	Charles Saffell– Field Trips	Sandra Balderrama – Publicity Chair
Claudia Kirscher – Program	Joy Dingley – Secretary

 

Treasurer’s Report

 

Janice presented a written report (attached) which showed a bank balance of $ 3827.99. There will be further payments to be made for such items as Liability Insurance which is paid quarterly. The donation from Arizona Medical Network secured for us by Charles Saffell accounted for the greater part of the balance in hand.

 

At such time as the Society receives a charter from National Audubon Mike Rupp and Fran Thurber are eager to get out and do some fund raising with corporations and charities.

 

Janice suggested that we should open a Savings Account to make a small amount of interest on any balance in hand.

 

Charles Saffell proposed the report be accepted and the Savings Account opened, this was seconded by Claudia Kirscher and agreed unanimously.

 

Membership Report

 

Krys reported that we now had 45 fully paid up members of DRAS.  There were others who were attending our meetings and field trips who had not yet joined.  Again action will follow when we have chapter status and Mike will write a personal letter to those who attend but have not joined.

 

At the same time we will work on getting the 35 new National Audubon members we need to get full chapter status.

 

Council Report

 

Krys reported that the Arizona Audubon Council have decided to make all the meetings for the coming year somewhere in Phoenix . She explained that the meeting is open to all interested Audubon members but because it has been held in such far flung places in the past the open attendance has not been great. She did urge as many as possible to attend the next one on 10^th February.

 

Krys attends as the Council President but wanted the matter of who will attend and vote on behalf of DRAS regularized.

 

 

A motion to make Janice Miano the DRAS representative on the Council was proposed by Krys Hammers, seconded by Sandra Balderramma and agreed unanimously.

 

A motion to make Mike Rupp and Joy Dingley alternates was proposed by Krys Hammers, seconded by Marion Saffell and agreed unanimously.

 

Newsletter Status

 

Like everything else this would be best sent out when we have Chapter status. Marion is doing the job of editor and Mike is providing the graphics. It was agreed that we would try to send out the majority of newsletters via email. There is still a need to have something to give out when we are at events and some members will not have access to the internet so it was agreed to have some printed out for that purpose each time.

 

Website

 

The Website is up and running well, our thanks to Kurt Radamaker. There seemed to be some confusion over the purpose of the login system and whether people using it realized that their details were open to everyone to see.

 

 

Field Trips

 

Charles and Marion have got most dates for the ensuing months fixed up.  There are still openings for Feb 24^th and March 3^rd. There will be 9 attending the Wednesday 24^th Jan trip to the Thrasher site.

Reports from Field Trip leaders can be uploaded to the website by Krys or Mike. There had been problems securing a report from all the field trip leaders in the past so Charles would encourage the leaders to at least have a list of birds seen to be shown on the website.

 

 

Publicity

 

Sandra has begun preparing publicity to release when Chapter status is achieved. The meeting agreed that Sandra should use the guideline that she could use any information about the group for publicity but any expression of view or opinion should be subject to approval by the board. It was pointed out that this would be a cumbersome method to follow and that an ad hoc committee to deal with urgent matters should be set up.

 

This led to a discussion on the need to address this matter in the bylaws. It was generally agreed that the bylaws should be ready for the members to vote on as soon possible after Chapter Status was given.  Mike and Krys pointed out that the Sonoran Chapter had a very good set of bylaws that we could use as the basis for our own.

 

 

Item tabled for next meeting – Future Bylaws.

 

Sandra also wanted to prepare interviews with all types and ages of birders and some suggestions of names were given to her. She would like to start with some biographies of the current board members.

 

 

 

Bird Walks

 

Mike reported that he was involved with Arizona Audubon’s River Connection. Volunteers are still needed to help with Tom Gaskill’s walks at Rio Salado. The work with Arizona Game and Fish at Tres Rios for school children is continuing.  Training would be available for volunteers for the various programs.

 

 

Mike asked whether it would be possible to purchase banners for the tent for the Tres Rios Festival and other occasions. It was also suggested that posters for the tents should also be bought and that bookmarks would also be a good way to get out the message about the group.

 

 

Krys Hammers proposed that banners, posters and bookmarks should be purchased.

This was seconded by Marion Saffell and agreed unanimously.

 

 

 

 

Gilbert Water Ranch Bird Deaths

 

Following the information given by a member at the last meeting it was agreed that the board was concerned about the possible bird deaths during the summer at Gilbert Water Ranch.

 

It was agreed that further information was needed and that we did not want to put further pressure on Scott Anderson as the problem may be of the City of Gilbert ’s making. This sort of problem was one with which Mike Rigney had expertise and, if his schedule allowed, it would be ideal to have him work on this.

 

 

Teaming with Wildlife

 

Janice explained that this was a coalition of 225 organizations who supported the Arizona Game and Fish Wildlife Action Plan.  Arizona would be sending a delegation to Washington to lobby to release money for the Action Plan.

 

2007 AAZ Celebration

 

Janice also reminded us that the AAZ Celebration was scheduled for the weekend beginning 14^th September at the Fiesta Inn, Tempe .

 

Volunteers will be needed to lead field trips, workshops will be available and the local groups are encouraged to be as active in the weekend as possible.

 

Janice was given suggestions to work on and the event will be publicized at our meetings.

 

 

Other business

 

Wildflower Fundraiser

 

Janice had details of the fundraiser evenings that could be held at the Wildflower Restaurant near the Gilbert Library. It was agreed that she go ahead and try to book us in for April and make this an annual event. 

 

Marion had some other restaurant venues that also offered this opportunity so this will also be investigated for the future.

 

Thank You letters and meals for speakers

 

Following from the agreement to use the Wildflower Restaurant as place to have a meal before the meeting it was agreed that we should always offer this hospitality to the speaker and offer to pay fuel costs for them.

 

We realized that we had not routinely been sending Thank You letters to speakers and Joy undertook to do this in future.

 

 

Adjournment

 

There being no other business Krys Hammers moved for adjournment at 9.10 pm.