February 2010 to January 2011

MEETINGS & OUTINGS:

As always, our Natural sightings of such wonders as: White Headed Woodpecker, Long toed Salamander, Butterflies and yellow bells are always a refreshing delight and to compliment these, Anthea presented many fantastic speakers for our meetings,

Feb – AGM And Members' Slides & Anne Murray, Conservation Committee Co-Chair For BC Nature, “The Important Bird Areas Program In The Okanagan”.

March - Karen Nicol, “The Blue Orchard Mason Bee”.

April - Alan Burger, Dept. Of Biology, University Of Victoria,, “Pursuing The Pacific Enigma: The Biology & Conservation Of The Marbled Murrelet”

May - Jim Ginns, "Panama In The Dry Season.”

Sept - Dr. George Scotter, Nahanni – Past, Present, Future

Oct. - Les Gyug, Birds And Beasts Of Okanagan Mountain Park

Nov. - Russell Cannings - Trying To See Them All: Russell's Big Year.

Jan/11 - Gregg Howald, Guns, Traps And Poisons: Preventing Wildlife Extinctions In The 21st Century.

Donna, Doreen, Glenda and Dennis attended the AGM in Kamloops in May. At this meeting we had 2 nominations that were accepted for awards: Bob Handfield received a Club Service Award and Mike Roberts of CHBC TV received a B.C.Nature Recognition Award.

As last year – Jim and the rest of the Conservation Committee were busy keeping an eye on issues and writing letters to MLA’s, Senators, MP’s, and our local council re-issues of concern to SONC. and made several presentations on such matters as well

Joyce, Charmaine, and Mits Outings set up many exciting outings, see following, and we enjoyed our annual summer picnic at the Research Station Gardens where we had a good turn out - until the rains started

PUBLICITY & COMMUNITY:
Marlene presented the OC Bursary Award, Ruth St.John Memorial, of $500 to Kieran Cox of Summerland

At the School District 67 Science Fair we presented a prize of $50 to James Nemes. He presented his project to us “Saving the Rain Forest.” This fall we increased the prize from $50 to $100 and wrote reclarified our guideline for candidates

Johanna and Hendrik set up & spearheaded a display at Cherry Lane Mall for Earth Day/Week

Frank organized our own Ironcrew 2010 to clean up after Iron Man, earning $500 for SONC

Dick updated the Okanagan Birding Checklist and had it reprinted – this is a big money maker for us

The WITS program has continued support from members.
Request from Lisa Scott for SONC support of WITS Program

Donate $ to 2 organizations We gave each $250 Burrowing Owl Society & SORCO.

Gave $200 to OSCA to toward a weed whacker for Vaseux Banding Station

Bob is heading a committee to organize an exciting 50th birthday celebration for SONC.


GARDENS:
South Okanagan Habitat Garden
South Okanagan Butterfly Garden
'The grand opening of the South Okanagan Butterfly Garden, a joint venture of SONC and the Friends of the Ornamental Garden
Helped En’Owkin and OSCA are asking for help on Nov. 5 to pull Ivy from the cottonwood trees at the Eco-Community place

ONGOING:
Continue to support the Baillie Birdathon and the Meadowlark Festival.
Doreen, Chris, Bob and many volunteers have spent many many hours organizing support for the proposed South Okanagan Similkameen National Park
Club sales of the Birding Trail guide are continuing to sell well.
A monthly column (Nature Wise) continues to be published in the Penticton Western

With regret, we said goodby to some exceptional members when we lost Bob Gibbard, Joan Poulsom, and Sam Maruoka over the year Glenda Ross (President)