Following Members’ Night presentations, all members and friends of the Mississippi Valley Field Naturalists are invited to attend the Annual General Meeting of MVFN. The meeting will be held at the Almonte United Church, 106 Elgin Street, Almonte on Thursday, April 16th, immediately following Members’ Night presentations, which begin at 7:30 pm.
For MVFN, the 2014/15 year was a very busy one. With one of the club’s original founding members, Cliff Bennett, once again leading the club, and Brenda Boyd serving as Vice President, the club saw significant growth in membership and interest. Highlights of the year include: a very successful speaker series, led by Programme Committee chair  Gretta Bradley;  the launch of a vigorous fund-raising campaign to support protection of the Burnt Lands Alvar, led by the chair of the Environmental Issues Committee Theresa Peluso; the publishing of a significant research document by MVFN’s Appleton Wetlands Research Committee on the cause of death of the Appleton Wetland;  and the continuing success of the very popular MVFN Young Naturalists programme. The Young Naturalists programme is part of the Environmental Education Program Committee chaired by Bob Smith. The sessions are designed and led by biologist Patty McLaughlin and the program coordinator is MVFN’s Ron Williamson.
Also of significance this year was the redevelopment of the MVFN website. This project was led by former Publicity and Public Relations chair Iain Wilkes and resulted in an updated more user-friendly and interesting format. Current chair of Publicity and Public Relations, Pauline Donaldson also led the website reorganization and continues to manage ongoing improvements to information provided on the site.
The MVFN Environmental Issues Committee continues to deal with a range of subjects of concern to the environment and protection of nature. For example, led by Tineke Kuiper, MVFN continues to work with the Town of Mississippi Mills to ensure recognition of Natural Heritage System policies to protect natural features and vital connective ‘corridors’ between them. A new Membership Committee was formed this year, chaired by Noel Noyes-Brown.
Very many nature-related outings were held over the past year, including outings of the ever-popular canoe/kayak programme led by Sheldon Scrivens and birding activities organized by the new MVFN Birding Committee, chaired by Tim Pullen. The AGM will feature reports on all of the above activities plus a complete financial report and election of officers for the coming year. Refreshments will be available. For further information contact Cliff Bennett at bennett@magma.ca / 613-256-5013 or visit mvfn.ca.
