Category: About the Organization

The Louisiana Master Naturalist Association Board of Directors met last Friday, Sept. 6, at the Louisiana Arboretum at Chicot State Park for one of our two face-to-face meetings per year. Fourteen of 21 Board members were present.

Much of our work was rather tedious but important stuff Boards are elected to do! We did a line-by-line review of our organizational by-laws and came up with a list of changes–mostly things made possible or necessary by our greater maturity as an organization. These changes will be voted on at our next conference call meeting.

We also discussed the upcoming Rendezvous 2020, scheduled April 17-19, 2020, at Camp Hardtner. Much work is yet to be done to prepare, but we’re already excited. I am particularly pleased to report that I will present my certification project, “Camp Hardtner: 100+ Years of Restoration,” Friday evening, as it will help people plan where they want to hike while we are there. It will need some updating!

We began a process of creating a Policy & Procedures Manuel, something our Northeast Chapter also needs to do. And, last but not least, we decided to create a binder of information about the certification curriculum of each chapter to serve as a resource for people responsible for organizing workshops. I’m looking forward to having that to help us enrich our own educational experiences.

It was a productive and fun day. Serving on this Board is a great privilege.

LMN–NE has been one of the best things about 2018 for me. I have learned a lot and had great fun at every meeting and workshop. Several of our workshop leaders have commented to me how much they appreciated our intense interest and thoughtful questions. Folks, we are a pleasure to teach!

Just as important, we all share freely whatever knowledge and skill each of us has. As a teacher myself, I truly appreciate the value of groups who enter fully into teaching and learning from each other.

Of course, I wish we had done more: More workshops, more fun hikes, more service projects. I hope you will come to our December meeting with ideas for next year and a willingness to jump in and help make it happen!

And now it is time to renew our memberships for another year. Dues have not changed. Everything on the Membership tab of this website has been updated. Like last year, you have two main options: Paying via PayPal online, or submitting cash, check or money order.

To renew your membership online via PayPal, just click the “Buy Now” button associated with the appropriate membership category. You will see that the buttons now specify “2019,” and the receipt PayPal generates for you will indicate 2019 membership dues.

Please note also that you can use any credit card to pay via PayPal. You do not need a PayPal account. And if you pay via PayPal, I will email you a brief form to complete and send back, as PayPal does not give us quite all the info we need for our member records (e.g., your phone & and mailing address).

If you don’t like paying online, no problem. Click on the Membership Form, print and complete it, and mail it to me along with your personal check or money order made payable to LMN–NE. My address is on the bottom of the form. Alternatively, you can hand it to me at our December meeting, along with a check, M.O. or cash.

Coming right up! Tuesday, August 28, 6 p.m., at the Union Parish Library, 202 West Jackson St., Farmerville.

Our focus will be wildlife rehabilitation. Leslie Albritton of Downsville and Micha Petty of Shreveport will be our guest speakers. Both are Louisiana Wildlife & Fisheries trained wildlife rehabbers.

Leslie rehabilitates furry critters. Check her out on Facebook and you will find photos of baby possums, skunks, raccoons and more.

Micha rehabilitates herps. You can find him on Facebook as well. I hope Micha will show you a short video of his recent release of a big alligator snapper back into the wild.

Here’s the plan for the evening: At 6 p.m. Stephanie Herrmann and the Union Parish Library will kick off their anti-littering campaign. Beginning at 6:30 p.m. Leslie and Micha will each have about 20 minutes to talk about what drew them to wildlife rehab, their view of the LDWF program and their favorite critter rehab stories. That will leave up to 20 minutes for our questions.

I will provide a handout about the next wildlife rehab training scheduled by LDWF this fall.

At 7:30 p.m. we will have a business meeting. Among the items on our agenda: a treasurer’s report, membership renewal, need for one more board member, some terrific t-shirt design ideas from Kim Paxton, additional certification workshop plans, etc.

And to you patient folks from the east side of our service area: I promise we will come your way for the 4th Quarter Meeting. I’m thinking a Sunday afternoon at Poverty Point.

I love red buckeye early in the year, even before it sends up stalks of firecracker blooms. This is the new photo of the week, made at the ULM Biological Station, Charles Allen Nature Preserve in February, 2017.

Please note that I have changed the “Photo of the Week” widget to a slideshow. And, because the caption will not accommodate enough text to give both common names and Latin names, I have settled on Latin names. Seems appropriate to me for budding Master Naturalists!