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Red Cedar Chapter News A Newsletter for the Red Cedar Chapter of the Michigan Botanical Club, Inc. January 2006 December Board MeetingThe December board meeting agenda dealt with two items. The board approved using club funds to pay for a meal for club speakers and approved a slate of officers for the year 2006. The slate of officers approved is: President: Megan Daniels
mdaniels@niswander-env.com December MeetingThe slate of officers was elected by acclamation. You will remember that at our November meeting we changed the election of officers from April to December so that the new officers will begin their terms with the January meeting. Congratulations to our new officers. We are looking forward to another great year under your direction. Our December speaker was new president, Megan Daniels. After graduation last spring, Megan went to work as an ecologist for Brooklyn Niswander Environmental Company. She recounted for us how beneficial attending two Spring Forays as a Red Cedar sponsored student has been to her, first, as a student and now, in her new job. At the foray, Megan was amazed to find how much natural area remains protected and relatively unspoiled in the heavily populated Southeastern Michigan area. She began by saying,” Oakland County is gorgeous” She was impressed by the information packed evening sessions. Woody, you opened her eyes to liverworts and mosses, which she once mostly overlooked, but now sees everywhere. She even had a chance to attend a plant drawing class. A high light for her was the tour of Walpole Island where there are five plants known nowhere else in Canada, 108 rare plants and 800 species of vascular plants. This was a very good foray and Megan helped us remember how much we to had enjoyed it. Well done, Megan! The meeting ended with refreshments and our annual Christmas drawing. Everyone went home with a live plant or a related prize. Megan Daniels A Candle To Light Her Way When our president, Jason Kilgore, resigned to finish his graduate work, Ron Priest took on the role of president while continuing his vice president role as program chairman. Under his direction we have experienced an exceptional year of outstanding programs and field trips. In addition, Ron organized the state level Fall Conference at Bengel Center. We are deeply grateful for Ron’s dedication and leadership. Thank you Ron. A DEFAULT PRESIDENT’S FAREWELL THANKS By Ron Priest Thank go to the Board Members of 2005 for your ideas to make our chapter more inviting to an even wider audience. Thanks also to our members who have participated and offered ideas for speakers and field trip sites. By increasing the number of field trips and diversifying topics of our talks, we are increasing Chapter membership. Before we’re able to get folks to attend we need, “curb appeal”. That’s where both Mary Leys and Roy Wesselman shine. They get our message out. Mary, as our Publicity Chair, publicizes our upcoming events to a variety of news media. As you may be aware, she’s even been interviewed on the radio. Roy, as our Secretary publishing the monthly newsletter, gets past and future events information to our members. He’s added color images to our monthly read. He also searches the web for additional information that members may find interesting as they read our speakers’ topics. Your Board members have made an excellent effort by strengthening RCC and making it more interesting for us all. As a departing idea for the coming year, the Board has approved one other enhancement, “Dinner with the Speaker”. For the first months of 2006 we’ll invite our months featured speaker to dine with us. We’ll be thanking our speaker with a dinner and giving members a chance to meet the speaker and other members, socially. Please see a separate article for the January details. A behind-the-scenes woman who has coached, prodded, and persuaded many of us to do better is Sherry Kovach. She’s ended the year with yet another splendid work-of-art for us, a watercolor of the Red Cedar River with a red cedar shrub. We plan to use it as an identifiable table centerpiece as we begin, “Dinner with the Speaker”. Many of our speakers may not know us, so they need only locate the Red Cedar picture on the restaurant table to know they’ve found us for dinner. We have had exceptional field trips this year thanks to field trip leaders Bob Peebles, Pat Fields, Jeremy Emmi, and Heather Hallen-Adams. Thanks, too, to all our members who have volunteered to bring food and drink to our monthly meetings. My sincere thanks to our 2005 Board Members: Barb Mead, Treasurer; Roy Wesselman, Secretary; Members-at Large: Robert Bloye, Bob Peebles, and Catherine Yansa; and Mary Leys, Publicity Chair. Best wishes too to Robert Bloye who will soon be completing his Ph. D. and may, we hope not, leave our area. “DINNER WITH THE SPEAKER” BEGINSListening to our monthly speakers is usually quite interesting, especially if we have a chance to ask them a question or two. What may turn out to be an even greater opportunity is to have dinner with the speaker and chat quite informally. Some of us do this either before or after their talk but others may not be able to. At our December regular meeting, we agreed to begin a “Dinner with the Speaker”, for the first few months of 2006. This will give us all an opportunity to meet our speaker prior to the talk and ask questions that may not be relevant to the talk. Additionally, it gives us a chance to become more familiar with other members of our Chapter. For January we begin dinner with Dr. James Detjen at the Harrison Roadhouse. It’s located on the southeast corner of Harrison and Michigan Avenue Roads. Dr. Detjen is Director of the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism at M.S.U. If you’re not sure where our table is, just look for Sherry Kovach’s watercolor of the Red Cedar River in the center of our table. One teensy-weensy catch: you have to pay for your own dinner. Only our invited speaker gets his at Chapter expense. We’ll be starting at about 5:30 on Tuesday, 3 January. Do give it a try. There’s a seat waiting for you! See you there.
Ron Priest, Vice President, 22 Dec 2005 RED CEDAR CHAPTER JANUARY MEETING Jan. 3, 7:30, Room 244, Natural Science Building PARKING DIRECTIONS
Or, if in front of the Natural Science Bldg. proceed toward Grand River Ave and turn left at your first opportunity.
Map Showing Route to Parking Behind the Nats Sci Building
Spring Fieldtrip Michigan Botany Club Fall Meeting Welsh’s Prairie Fieldtrip
It’s time to renew your membership by paying your Red Cedar Chapter dues. Checks can be mailed to Barbara Mead or brought to the January meeting.
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