Outreach
Your outreach efforts are working! Thank you for recruiting for our fall class at Mountain View College. Tom Willard recruits on the trails at Cedar Ridge Preserve, and with Alice Ann Perry at Cedar Hill Earth Fest. Tabatha Knickerbocker talks up the fall class on dogwood hikes at Dogwood Canyon Audubon Center. Many thanks to Yolanda Arteaga Gonzalez and Victor M. Cruz Adames for representing our chapter at Cinco de Mayo festivities in Oak Cliff, while I was across town recruiting at John Bunker Sands Wetland Center during its mudbug festival. Much gratitude to all our Earth Day volunteers for spreading the word in April!

Your enthusiasm and encouragement results in overwhelmingly impressive applicants: two presidents, one director, several writers, a number of beekeepers, a property manager, an urban farmer, a development and outreach coordinator with nonprofit management experience, Montessori teacher, Dallas Zoo interpretive guide, environmental educator, an archaeologist, an aggie and another Rose, oh my!

Registration period closes June 20^th. Please continue to encourage neighbors of our southern Dallas County project partners to get involved with volunteering in our community.

Speakers
New this fall, William Ford, City of Cedar Hill Parks & Recreation Director, will teach urban ecosystems. He has long experience managing the interrelationship of residential, government and natural ecosystems. He shuts down park project trail building during Golden-cheeked warbler season; and is sensitive to avoiding sprawl and fragmentation during civic planning. His 30 years’ experience with the city of San Marcos instills a special concern for water conservation in park master planning.

Once I hear from our local game warden who will teach “Laws, Ethics and Regulations” I will be able to report: all speakers confirmed and the fall schedule is set.

Field Trips
Power couple and fall class applicants Kate Whidden and Charles Cathcart stepped forward quickly in our committee meetings to assume our fall class field trip coordinator role. Confidently planning for a class of 50 means we must accommodate multiple options for field trips – a daunting task which multiplies. They seem to delight in reasoning through and planning out what most find overwhelming or intimidating, and have already completed our fall class field trip schedule. 

Class Project
Rich Laffey brings his administrative leadership to project planning for our fall class. He connects with our southern Dallas County project venues and works to develop those partnerships and build the framework for successful class project abstracts.

Your Vice President is grateful for this strong momentum and your encouraging support.

Onward!