October 2017

Even our most rural Virginia Master Naturalist chapters have developed areas within their communities, and learning about ecosystem functions in urban and developed areas is as important as learning about ecosystems in more wild places.  Here are three (of many) ways that you can learn more about urban forests, specifically.  In a future newsletter issue, we will discuss ways that VMN volunteers can put that learning into action through volunteer service relating to urban forestry.

ONE: Attend the upcoming program, “Urban Forests for Your Health:  How Trees Can Save Your Life”, organized by Trees Virginia, Virginia’s Urban Forest Council.  The purpose of this bi-annual conference is to present research relating to urban forests and human health.  Speakers from the USDA Forest Service and other organizations will review the research on connections between nature contact and human health, how medical facilities are incorporating nature to improve patient outcomes, how localities are using city parks to address community challenges, and how to communicate the importance of green space to city officials and other people. 

Details: 
November 9, 2017, 8:00 am – 4:00 pm
Algonkian Regional Park, 47001 Fairway Drive, Sterling, VA 20165
Registration and more information at http://treesvirginia.org/events.  Registration closes November 3!

If you miss this event, watch for future urban forestry workshops and roundtables from Trees Virginia; there are several other learning opportunities throughout the year.

​TWO: Review the Virginia Master Naturalist Urban and Developed Systems Ecology and Management curriculum materials.  This collection of videos, readings, presentations, and activities was developed with funding from the Virginia Department of Forestry to give VMN trainees an understanding of how urbanization impacts natural resources and of the many actions we can take to help mitigate these impacts.  Find these materials at http://www.virginiamasternaturalist.org/urban-and-developed-systems.html. 

THREE: Learn more about urban wood utilization.  We talk a lot in our Virginia Master Naturalist curriculum about the importance of urban forests and the ecosystem services they provide.  But, what happens to urban trees when they get sick and die?  In many situations, it wouldn’t be practical to leave the tree in place.  It might be in a place where it could cause property damage or block a road or sidewalk.  Or, the urban tree might still be alive but need to be removed because of a new building or conflict with overhead powerlines.  Possibly the property owner just does not want the tree there anymore for whatever reason.  The wood from an urban tree removed under these circumstances could just be burned or turned into mulch.  There are a lot of other possible uses for that wood, however!  It could be made into much more valuable wood products, such as building lumber, furniture, or flooring.  In some cases, the imperfections, such as knots, found in an urban tree may actually add value, as customers look for wood that has “character” for furniture and other artistic uses.  The Virginia Urban Wood Group aims to provide improve the utilization of Virginia’s urban forest resources through education and enhanced marketing.  Right now, there are few contractors poised to provide the necessary services (e.g., small-scale logging, portable sawmills) to make use of this wood in an economically advantageous way.  The Virginia Urban Wood Group hopes to increase the number of service providers who can fill this niche, and to link them to marketing opportunities.  Read more about this effort at http://treesvirginia.org/outreach/virginia-urban-wood-group. ​

Today, we launched “Creating Exceptional Leadership for Natural Resource Conservation”, a short-term crowdfunding campaign to benefit the Virginia Master Naturalist program, its chapters, and its volunteers.  Give today and join our dedicated group of Virginia Master Naturalist program supporters.

https://crowdfund.vt.edu/vmn

About Us
The Virginia Master Naturalist (VMN) program is a corps of 29 local chapters with more than 1,800 trained volunteers engaged in natural resource education, citizen science, and stewardship. 

Essentially all our program activities at the local level are conducted by volunteers, from recruiting new participants and providing training to organizing service projects and tracking volunteer hours.  The volunteer chapter leaders in each region of the state are the linchpins of the VMN program and are critical to the success achievement of our conservation mission. 

Our Need
Having these 300+ volunteer leaders run all local aspects of a large, statewide program such as ours is challenging.  As our chapters grow and evolve, we find there is an increasing need to train and support those local leaders so that we have a strong supply of volunteers who are confident and prepared to take on the leadership roles.  High-quality local leaders increase the overall impact of our chapters, so that they can recruit and retain more volunteers, accomplish more impactful service projects, and ultimately make more significant contributions to natural resource conservation in the Commonwealth.

The Impacts You Can Make With Your Gift
The purpose of our project is to provide training and resources to increase the capacity of our local volunteer leaders.  We will hold four regional Leadership Days at which we will provide training on effective management of VMN chapters, strategies for decision-making and conflict resolution, and plans for creating and organizing impactful service projects.  In addition, we will create online resources (e.g., webinars, manuals, templates) that our volunteer leaders, especially those new to their roles, will use.

In the short term, our project will increase volunteers’ willingness to take on and stay in leadership roles, and it will increase their efficacy in those roles.  In the long term, our project will result in more robust Virginia Master Naturalist chapters that are better at recruiting, retaining, and managing volunteers and partnerships so that they have more positive impacts on Virginia’s woods, wildlife, and waters.

Virginia Master Naturalists are a rather impressive bunch of people, dedicating extraordinary amounts of time and significant talents to benefit Virginia’s natural resources.  We recognize our volunteers’ accomplishments in our newsletter, through items such as milestone pins, and also, for a small number of volunteers and chapters, through our statewide awards.  Each year, we put out a call for nominations for some special awards to bring extra attention to the great work of our volunteers.

In 2017, we expanded our awards into eight different categories.  We very much thank all of the people who took time to write and submit nominations for these awards.  Details on this year’s winners are below.

Volunteer With the Most Hours
This award recognizes the volunteer who reported the most hours in the previous year.  The recipient, Daina Henry (VMN-Peninsula Chapter), completed and reported 1,087 hours of Virginia Master Naturalist volunteer time in 2016.  That is just about the hours of a half-time job!  In 2016, Daina conducted water quality monitoring in local streams, organized a biodiversity inventory of a wetland and creek area, assisted with trail maintenance for a nature trail used by school groups and the public, and participated in several education and outreach efforts in the community. She also served as the president of her chapter.  

Volunteer of the Year​
For the Volunteer of the Year, we received 11 nominations of volunteers from 11 different chapters.  Every single one of these people, as well as many who weren’t nominated, is truly a Volunteer of the Year.  It is amazing what these individuals give to improving natural resource education, stewardship, and citizen science in their communities.  We want to recognize all of the nominees, along with this year’s winner.

The award for Volunteer of the Year goes to Bill Blair (VMN-Northern Neck Chapter), a volunteer who exemplifies the leadership we hope to see from Virginia Master Naturalists.  His nominator writes, “His energy, positive attitude, subject matter expertise, and communication skills have had a clear and measurable impact on motivating people to learn about and embrace the natural world and volunteer.  His volunteer work defines what it is to be a selfless Master Naturalist to better the Commonwealth of Virginia.”  Examples of his ongoing work in include volunteer projects at Belle Isle State Park Youth Camp, Leading tours and educational programs at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS), leading several bird survey projects, providing stewardship work at two local parks, and even performing a re-enactment of John Muir and his legacy of conservation. ​

Chapter With the Most Hours Per Active Member
Our chapters vary greatly in size, so for this award, we scale the hours based on the total number of volunteers in the chapter who reported service hours that year.  Winning the award for their 2016 work this year is the Historic Rivers Chapter, one of our larger chapters, with 118 active members in 2016.  On average, those volunteers each contributed 134 hours of service during the year.  Some of the projects they did included wildlife monitoring through DGIF’s Wildlife Mapping project (done as an organized group in local parks), numerous bird and butterfly counts, environmental education with local parks and schools, and oyster restoration projects.  

Chapter Advisor of the Year
Each of our chapters has a chapter advisor who works with one of the seven state agency sponsors of the program.  Our 2017 Chapter Advisor of the Year is Paul Bugas of the Headwaters Chapter.  Paul is a Fisheries Biologist with DGIF.  His contributions have included sponsoring the original organizers of the chapter, arranging for chapter outings and continuing education opportunities, nurturing the chapter through various growing pains.  The nominator writes, “Our project list and volunteer participation levels are still a reflection of his positive influence, as we are motivated to live up to his trust and example.  He is there at night and on weekends for graduations, tours, annual meetings, and individual member needs.  And he is not just there – he will bring a casserole too!  Because of Paul, the Headwaters Chapter members will continue to volunteer for chemical and macroinvertebrate river monitoring, river cleanups, school and public education days, riparian buffer planting and maintenance, and many other projects.  We honor his investment in us!”

​Education Project of the Year 
The Virginia Junior Master Naturalist Program of the Tidewater Chapter connects youth to nature through a creative model of training teen leaders who then develop lesson plans and lead learning sessions and field activities for 8-13 year old children twice a month.  The program also pairs other Certified Virginia Master Naturalists from the chapter with the teen leaders to help provide mentorship, and members of the chapter also serve as guest instructors or helpers for the activities.  The intention of the program is to help youth grow from participants to teen leaders to future Virginia Master Naturalist volunteers.  Two VMN volunteers, in particular, have really made this program happen: Suzanne Moss and Jody Ullmann.  They taught a session about their program at the VMN statewide conference in September.  

​

Citizen Science Project of the Year
The Bat Monitoring Project of the Pocahontas Chapter started with a focus on monitoring bat populations in Pocahontas State Park, documenting the existing population and determining locations for additional bat boxes based on weekly monitoring throughout the park.  More than 40 members of the chapter have participated in the project.  Now, more recently, it is starting to expand to new locations, and they are working to get 12 more chapters involved in bat monitoring using bat detectors and a standardized national protocol.  Liz Revette of the VMN-Pocahontas Chapter has been the leader for this entire effort, proposing the original project in the park, contacting other chapters as she works to expand the project, and writing grants to purchase equipment.

Stewardship Project of the Year
Quite a few of our chapters participate in the DGIF Birding and Wildlife Trail Adopt-a-Trail project, in one way or another.  The Northern Neck Chapter has turned this project into a major chapter project, monitoring 22 sites for the Northern Neck Trail spread out over some 8,000 square miles.  Nearly one-third of their chapter members participate, and they contributed approximately 300 hours to the project in just 18 months.  Much of their success is due to the hard work by Alison Sowar, who coordinates the project within the chapter, organizing the volunteers, collecting the data from the volunteers and creating reports, and communicating with DGIF.

Administrative Project of the Year
Between 15 and 20 percent of VMN volunteer hours are on administration – all that work that keeps our local chapters running effectively.  This work is vital due to our program structure; we don’t have any local staff serving as coordinators–just our chapter advisors who provide some oversight.  Few people become Virginia Master Naturalist volunteers because they want to work on chapter administration, yet some volunteers really put in effort to go beyond the minimum to make their chapters the best they can be.  The selection committee has chosen the Historic Southside Chapter’s “Update of Chapter Projects, Homepage, and Overall Usage and Understanding of the Volunteer Management System” for this year’s award.  Early in 2017, Chris Peters, who was a new member of the chapter, volunteered to do research and develop a presentation to enhance the chapter’s use of the VMS.  That resulted in a major overhaul of project organization, with reviews and updates of all project descriptions.  They also re-vamped the chapter’s home page on the VMS to highlight current projects with photos, in order to encourage members to log on frequently to see what is new.  Chris developed a training presentation on the VMS used with both new trainees and the general membership.  The chapter has seen a 12% increase in the number of hours entered, and many chapter members have expressed appreciation for the additional training and the upgrades.

About the Contest

This year, we held our fifth Virginia Master Naturalist photo contest, and the first in digital format.  Digital Photography is where it is at today and a very important tool for VMNs. Our hope was that this new format would encourage and make it easier for chapters to enter the contest and also offer an opportunity for a few digital lessons to be learned. And, we felt it would have a much smaller ecological footprint than frames, mats, packing and printing!

This year’s contest categories were “Virginia Flora, Fauna, and Other Species”, “Virginia Landscapes and Habitats”, and “Virginia Master Naturalists in Action”.  We received 48 entries from 16 different VMN chapters across the state.  Each chapter could submit only one photo per category, and chapters were allowed to design their own processes for choosing which photos to send.  Many chapters hold their own internal photo contest, often having members vote to choose the submissions.

The 2017 contest was coordinated by Marie Majarov, who is a talented nature writer and photographer herself, as well as a member of our VMN-Shenandoah Chapter.  Marie did an excellent job bringing everyone into the digital age, creating a guide for saving and labeling digital photos properly and offering one-on-one help along the way to anyone who needed it.  She also assembled an impressive team of judges.  

The contest winners were announced on September 15, 2017 at our statewide conference.  Winners received lovely certificates (again, thanks to Marie Majarov), as well as bragging rights and the opportunity for many more folks to see their fantastic photos.  Marie and the judges all congratulated everyone who submitted photos, whether just to the local chapter contests or to the statewide contests as well.  The judges mentioned that in many cases, the decisions were hard!

Contest Judges

Sally Mills, Editor Virginia Wildlife Magazine
Sally is rounding out ten years as the editor of Virginia Wildlife magazine and overseeing the other print publications for the Department of Game & Inland Fisheries. In that capacity, she works with some of Virginia’s finest writers and wildlife photographers.  Prior to that, she worked with the Virginia Sea Grant Program at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, another one of our sponsors! There she directed communication efforts for the Advisory Services Program. She wrote, edited, and designed the quarterly Virginia Marine Resource Bulletin.  In her spare time, Sally enjoys kayaking, hiking, fishing, photography, music, beekeeping and fly-fishing

Lynda Richardson, Art Director Virginia Wildlife Magazine
Lynda Richardson, Art Director for DGIF’s Virginia Wildlife Magazine creates the beautiful layouts that grace the magazine pages. She is also a nationally renowned freelance wildlife & environmental photojournalist with over 30 year’s experience. Lynda has been published in numerous prestigious magazines such as the Smithsonian magazine, National and International Wildlife magazines, The Nature Conservancy and National Geographic. Her photography has enabled Lynda to travel the globe to multiple countries in Africa, Central and South America, as well as to Cuba, Mexico, Poland, Belarus, and throughout the United States.  She has sold thousands of images worldwide.

Ed Felker – Virginia Landscapes and Habitats Category
Ed Felker is a graphic designer, photographer, write and outdoorsman. His writing and photography have been featured in Virginia Sportsman magazine, Virginia Wildlife magazine and other fine publications. Ed can most often be found outdoors near his studio overlooking the Potomac River, usually with a camera, often with a fly rod, always with a dog, enjoying the beauty and humor in the world around him. He writes about that works at his blog, Dispatches from the Potomac. Ed is a member of the Virginia Outdoor Writers Association. His Blog is not to be missed… outstanding photography and writing!

Robert Thomas – Virginia Landscapes and Habitats Category
Robert Thomas is a professional photographer and educator. He began his career during the Golden Age of slide film when Kodachrome was ASA 10 and High Speed Ektachrome was ASA 64, cameras were mechanical, and exposure was manual. Robert now has evolved to become a digital photography expert! He is an avid outdoorsman and is currently the Chairman of the Board of the Virginia Outdoor Writers Association, a Board member of the Mason-Dixon Outdoor Writers Association and is the Director of Communications for the Fly Fishers of Virginia. He lives in Richmond, VA with is wife Joan and dog Liza.

Tim Farmer – Virginia Master Naturalists in Action Category
A graduate of Western Kentucky Univerwity with a degree in photojournalism, Tim worked as a writer, photographer, and editor for newspapers in Kentucky and Virginia over a span of 15 years. Tim has been a contributing editor to Canoe & Kayak magazine for 10 years and had numerous articles and photos published in various magazines and newspapers, including USA Today and The Washington Post. Since 1997 Tim has been the Public Relations Coordinator for the State Arboretum of Virginia at UVA’s Historic Blandy Experimental Farm in Boyce, VA, “The Commonwealth’s Public Garden,” where he has had the opportunity to combine “my love of the outdoors with my writing, editing, and photography experience.’ He still finds time for adventures and a few freelance assignments from time to time. Tim also tells us that “I guess I was born with ink in my blood, since both my parents were journalists early in their careers and my mom was one of the first female photographers for the then-new network of newspapers called The Associated Press. I started my first newspaper in sixth grade, a 2-page flyer full of school gossip and bad jokes that I sold for 2 cents per copy. I used the proceeds to buy a pet skunk.”

 And, the Winners!
All the winning photos are viewable below.  Click on the gallery thumbnails for each photo to see the titles, photographers, and placement.

Virginia Flora, Fauna, and Other Species

• First Place: Inge Curtis, Historic Rivers Chapter, “Oystercatcher on Grandview Beach”
• Second Place: Matt Bright, Arlington Regional Chapter, “Morning Dew” Strophostyles umbellata
• Third Place: Lisa Gurney, Eastern Shore Chapter, “White-tail deer, Odocoileus virginianus, Assateague”
• Honorable Mention: Bill Gorewich, Pocahontas Chapter, “Conflict” Sialis sialis & Cardinalidae

 
Virginia Landscapes and Habitats

• First Place: Emily Luebke, Rivanna Chapter, “Sweet Summer Night,” Raven’s Roost, Blue Ridge Parkway 
• Second Place: Kevin Divins, Pocahontas Chapter, “Forest, Mt. Rogers”
• Third Place: John Bunch, Historic Southside Chapter, “Approaching Sunset on the Blackwater”
• Honorable Mention: Judy Illmensee, Eastern Shore Chapter, “Rainbow” Oyster VA

 
Virginia Master Naturalists in Action

• First Place: Rich Brager, Blue Ridge Foothills & Lakes Chapter, “Awakenings” Rivanna River
• Second Place: Josh Schnell, Arlington Regional Chapter, “Snappershot,” Chelydra serpentina
• Third Place: Rosemarie Nielsen, Merrimac Farm “Inquiring Minds”
• Honorable Mention: Hannah Bement, Shenandoah Chapter, “Viewing a Wood Frog Egg Mass”
• Honorable Mention: Noel Boaz, Southwestern Piedmont Chapter, “Be Very Quiet I’m Hunting Chapter Secretaries, VA Museum of Natural History”