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​Guinness World Record for Catch the King
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Catch the King is a crowd-sourced citizen science project for mapping the highest tides of the year.   The extent of this annual extreme high tide is where regular high tides are expected to be in the future due to gradual sea level rise.  Data collected by citizen scientists is used to validate and improve a VIMS tidal flooding forecasting model.  Thanks to the efforts of 722 volunteers in 2017, including many Virginia Master Naturalists, a Guinness World Record was recently awarded to the first Catch the King flood mapping event.  A record-setting number of 59,718 survey samples were collected making it the ‘most contributions to an environmental survey’ under Guinness rules.  The previous record was 10,000.  Last year’s event in 2018 had fewer participants, which is why the first year’s event was the record breaker.  Read more about the world record in this VIMS story.   The third annual Catch the King mapping event is scheduled to take place this year on Sunday, October 27, 2019.   More information and training sessions will be posted at the WHRO King Tide web site.  Undoubtedly, Virginia Master Naturalists will once again help Catch the King Tide in coastal Virginia.   

The VMN program recognizes volunteers who complete 250, 500, 1,000, 2,500, 5,000, 7,500, and 10,000 hours of service.  These are cumulative volunteer hours starting when a volunteer joins the program.  To offer some perspective, a volunteer who does the 40 hours of service annually to maintain status as a Certified Virginia Master Naturalist would take 6-7 years to achieve the 250 hour milestone and 125 years to achieve the 5,000 hour milestone!  

Below, we have listed the volunteers who have achieved these milestones between August 2018 and January 2019 (based on reports received by our chapters as of January 31.)  Some of these volunteers have demonstrated long-term dedication through many years with the program.  Others have joined the program more recently, but they have done extraordinary levels of service in a short time frame.  We are honored to have all of them sharing their time and talents as Virginia Master Naturalist volunteers, and we are pleased to recognize their efforts in this newsletter and with special milestone pins.  Their names are listed alphabetically within each chapter.

In addition, although we cannot list them all here, we are thrilled to recognize the 1,400 Virginia Master Naturalist volunteers who certified or re-certified for 2019, meaning they completed 40 hours of volunteer service and 8 hours of continuing education. Congratulations, everyone!

Thank you to Tiffany Brown, VMN project assistant, for compiling these lists!

We are busy in the VMN state office reading through the annual reports from our chapters.  Chapter leaders work hard on these reports to compile the membership and volunteering statistics for their chapters and to describe some of their most impactful projects from the year.  It’s exciting for us to hear about their accomplishments, and it is clear that Virginia Master Naturalist volunteers are continuing to make important impacts in their communities and to benefit Virginia’s waters, woods, and wildlife.

In 2018, 1,994 volunteers reported more than 190,000 hours of service, over 28,000 hours of continuing education, and nearly 145,000 face-to-face exchanges of educational information about natural resources.  The volunteers reported stewardship work at 446 sites across Virginia, including local, state, and national parks, local and state natural areas, trails, schoolyards, and more.  Their service in 2018 is valued at  more than $5 million, based on the value of a volunteer hour in Virginia as calculated by IndependentSector.org.

VMN-Historic Southside Chapter:  A New State Record of a Rare Liverwort and a Grant for Education Projects

By Lynn Wehner and John Bunch, both VMN-Historic Southside Chapter

John Bunch (VMN-Historic Southside Chapter) has found and identified a new STATE record of a rare liverwort, Fossombronia cristula.  This is in addition to the 20+ county records of various ‘worts’ he had last year and some 40+ plants total.  Liverworts, like mosses and hornworts, are non-vascular plants.  They are usually quite small and thus easily overlooked by most people, though not by this sharp-eyed naturalist who delights in exploring swamps in pursuit of botanical discoveries!  Learn more about John’s find.

Another piece of good news is that the ​Historic Southside Chapter was awarded a grant of nearly $2000 from the Chesapeake Bay Restoration Fund. This fund is from money collected from the sale of ‘Save the Bay’ license plates. The chapter will use the funds to purchase additional educational materials to be used in outreach and education about impacts on the Chesapeake Bay watershed. This grant was one of 90 awarded across the state to various organizations.

VMN-Historic Rivers Chapter Recognized By the Virginia Recreation and Park Society

By Adrienne Frank, VMN-Historic Rivers Chapter

The Historic Rivers Chapter Board is honored to announce that our chapter received the Distinguished Private Sector Service Award from the Virginia Recreation and Park Society, submitted by Alister Perkinson, celebrating all of the things that we have accomplished in our partnership with James City County Parks and Recreation.  He highlighted our contributions by saying that “In 2017, we dedicated over 2,500 volunteer hours in the James City County Parks at an estimated value of $61,725.” Projects in the parks included Bluebird and Prothonotary Warbler nest box monitoring, natives planting at the Williamsburg Botanical Garden, the Butterfly Festival, summer camps and nature programs, educational displays at the Rec Center, signage for Living Forest Interpretive Trails, and the Powhatan Creek waterways guide. These projects had an impact on thousands of visitors to our parks. 

VMN-Fairfax Chapter Volunteers Recognized by the Fairfax County Park Authority

The Fairfax County Park Authority established the Elly Doyle Park Service Award program in 1988 to recognize former Board Member and Chair Ellamae Doyle’s years of outstanding service. Four Fairfax Master Naturalists were recognized during the November 2018 ceremony:

• Marilyn Schroeder, Elly Doyle Park Service Award
• Tom Blackburn, Outstanding Volunteer, Riverbend Park
• Shannon Dart, Outstanding Volunteer, Huntley Meadows
• Bob Dinse, Outstanding Volunteer, Hidden Oaks

Congratulations, Marilyn, Tom, Shannon, and Bob!

ARMN Celebrates 10 Years Serving Community and Launches Facebook Page

By Kasha Helget, VMN-Arlington Regional Chapter

The Arlington Regional Master Naturalists group just finished its 10th year as a Virginia Master Naturalist chapter, and over 70 members celebrated the milestone at the Annual Meeting in December.

President Marion Jordan highlighted ARMN’s past achievements, present efforts, and plans for future activities. This included an acknowledgment of the various projects on which members have donated thousands of hours during the decade. Among these are stewardship activities (such as invasive plant removals from regional parks and public lands, stream cleanups, and native plant nursery work); education and outreach programs (including public events and instructional programs, nature center support, work with children inside and outside of the classroom, and school gardens); and citizen science (such as stream water monitoring, bird counts, tree, plant, and insect surveys, and more recently, bioblitzes and other surveys that use internet-based iNaturalist, eBird, and GPS tools to track plant, animals, and restoration efforts).

For the future, Jordan stressed the priority of expanding ARMN’s outreach to include more members of the community with events such as “pop-up parks” (to provide nature mini-presentations to passers-by both in parks and elsewhere), as well as more structured outreach to a variety of organizations and citizens.

The ARMN members also submitted their own reflections on their past and present involvements in the organization, and how they looked forward to continued participation during the next decade.

Active membership in ARMN has grown to over 175 individuals whose contributions have multiplied throughout the years. Just in 2018, members reported over 15,000 hours of work in support of the natural environment locally and throughout Virginia!

The ARMN organization has also been honored during its ten years by awards from the National Park Service and Arlington County, and individual members have been honored for their efforts in supporting Arlington’s natural environment.

ARMN has recently launched the Arlington Regional Master Naturalists
Facebook page to engage members of the general public about local natural events, photos, discussion topics, or other items of interest in our natural world. Anyone can join by applying for inclusion in the group. We hope to see YOU participate there, too!