1:00pm – Attend Chapter Presidents & Advisors Meeting

January 25th Chapter Presidents & Advisors Meeting

• Introduce yourself & your chapter in the Chat Room• Share video (if your bandwidth allows)• Michelle will be monitoring the chat room• Will share slides, chat room and notes

• We’ll get started at 1:00pm • Volunteer Note Taker – ________________________

January 25thChapter Presidents &

AdvisorsMeeting

Agenda• Monthly Presidents & Advisors

Meeting Outline• Chapter Leadership & Advisors

Update to VMS• TMN Program COVID Guidelines• Program Planning for 2021• State Office Capacity• State Website• TMN Tuesdays• Virtual Volunteer Fair 2021

• What Nature Means• Annual Meeting 2021• Pin Updates• Certification Policies for 2021• Board Leadership Retreats• Spring Training Plans• Looking Ahead

Chapter Presidents & Advisors Monthly Meetings

• Contact Lists pulled from VMS ‘TMN Directors’ List Toggle

• Normally only ONE hour long, may go past in busy months• Will be announced monthly & Zoom link shared a week to two weeks in

advance• Will be recorded & recording posted afterwards• Notes, Chat & Slides will be posted afterwards

• Follow up items will be covered in post-meeting email if needed

• Meeting can count for 1-2 Hour(s) of Volunteer Service o Log under “Chapter/Program Administration”

Update Officers List

Monthly Presidents & Advisors Meeting Schedule

• 2021 Monthly Chapter Presidents Meeting – last Monday of Montho January 25tho February 22nd o March 29tho April 26tho May 24tho June 28tho **No July Meetingo **August 9th (summer meeting)o September 27tho **October - @Annual Meetingo **November 15tho **December 13th

Updating Contact Lists in VMS• Chapters: Please help keep these contacts up to date so that we can better communicate with

you and with each other: Officers:o President o Vice President o Treasurero Secretary

Directors: • Immediate Past President • Membership Director • New Class Director • Communications Director • Advanced Training Director • Volunteer Service Projects Director • New Class Representative • State Chapter Representative • TPWD & AgriLife Advisor(s) if available to the Chapter

Standing Committees:Executive Committee Training Committee Membership Committee Volunteer Service Projects CommitteeAdvanced Training Committee

Ad-Hoc Committees:Financial Examination Officer Nominations Director Nominations Other Committees

TMN Program COVID Safety & Response Guidelines

The following guidelines will direct how the Texas Master Naturalist Program will operate for the foreseeable future.

Guidelines for all TMN Activities:It is very important to know and follow all federal, state, county and local COVID guidelines/restrictions before conducting TMN Activities. Beyond these the TMN program will have the following guidelines:1. Virtual meeting platform tools should be used whenever possible.2. For any indoor activity that does occur in-person, both volunteers and public participants must wear masks.

The occupancy limit shall not exceed one person per 100 square feet of indoor public space to allow for 10 feet of social distance.

3. For outdoor activities, both volunteers and public participants must wear masks and social distance by at least 6 feet.

4. All multi-county TMN Chapters must consider each of their county’s health ordinances when scheduling in person (‘face-to-face’) events or meetings, the ability/inability for chapter membership to attend, and the equity of scheduling events in certain counties to the exclusion/inclusion of certain segments of the chapter.

https://txmn.tamu.edu/welcome/covid-19-response/Effective until further

notice

4. All multi-county TMN Chapters must consider each of their county’s health ordinances when scheduling in person (‘face-to-face’) events or meetings, the ability/inability for chapter membership to attend, and the equity of scheduling events in certain counties to the exclusion/inclusion of certain segments of the chapter.

• What about training/outreach events in one county and travel to/from?

• Do you have service projects accessible in each of your counties or where your membership lives?

• How does this work with expanding membership or diversifying reach?

• Is there a solution to this at all?

What operating questions do you have?

• Let’s capture those here . . . .

. . . . And those we don’t have answers to, we’ll work to get answers.

Program Planning for 2021

• Effectively using our virtual communication lines.o Monthly Chapter Presidents

Meetingso Chapter Website emphasis

• Increasing virtual based instruction & engagement opportunities.o Virtual Volunteer Fairo TMN Tuesdayso 2021 Annual Meeting

• Increasing diversity, equity & inclusion efforts program wide.

Photo by: Linda Donnell, North Texas ChapterPhoto by: Jerrel Geisler, Gulf Coast Chapter

Help Your State Office!

• State Office Capacity Issues & Real Discussions . . . o What do we have to drop in order to manage these new tasks? What gets less attention?o How do we avoid this changing the execution of our Program’s mission?o Longer reply time to emails to be anticipated . . .

• How Your Chapter Can Help!o READ THE WEBSITEo So many of the emails received are answerable from materials already existing on the websiteo Exhaust all your available resources . . . Chapter Leaders, Advisors, Website, Facebook, Old Emails, Past

Chairs, Historical Members

State Website

E V E N T S C A L E N D A RH T T P S : / / T X M N . T A M U . E D U / E V E N T S /

State office will be sharing & posting state level offered advanced trainings or upcoming events. All events added are not automatically approved for AT, please check with your local chapter first.

Don’t forget about our TMN State Email Listserv!

https://txmn.tamu.edu/contact/

N A T U R A L I S T N E W S

H T T P S : / / T X M N . T A M U . E D U / N E W S /

TMN Tuesdays• Second Tuesday of Month - Virtual Advanced Training• Up to an Hour of AT!• Featured Speakers/Groups hosted once a month via WebEx

o January 12th

o February 9th – Doug Tallamy!o March 9th – Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, Speaker TBAo April 13th

o May 11th

o June 8th

o July 13th

o August 10th

o September 14th

o October 21st – 24th – Annual Meeting (No TMN Tuesday)o November 9th

o December 14th

Idea List:Highlight Chapter Project innovationsJMN Panel presentationBoard Leadership RetreatsNew Training Class IdeasOnline Virtual Service ProjectRegional Coordinators

Who would you recommend for a March DEI speaker?

TMNTuesdayNewsletter

Will send this out to chapters to use in their monthly newsletter.

Virtual Volunteer Fair – 2021 Plans• Save the Date – February 3rd & 4th – 9am – 12pm each day• Attending LIVE will count for Volunteer Service• Will be Recorded – watching the recording not part of state exception for VS

hours.• Registration opening this week• Agenda out soon!• https://txmn.tamu.edu/virtual-volunteer-fair-february-2021/

Wednesday February 3rd• 9:00 AM - 9:10 AM Introduction• 9:10 AM - 9:20 AM George W. Bush Presidential Library Native Texas Park Docent - Lois Diggs• 9:20 AM - 9:30 AM Prairie Restoration Maintenance Plan - Stephanie Keith• 9:30 AM - 9:40 AM Erosion Plot Design - Stephanie Keith• 9:40 AM - 9:50 AM Social Media Content - Jordan Kieffer• 9:50 AM - 10:00 AM BREAK• 10:00 AM - 10:10 AM Flora and Fauna Guide to the Chris W. Burkett Service Center Demonstration Gardens -

Rebecca Sales• 10:10 AM - 10:20 AM Virtual Interpretive Videos - Brent Wilkins• 10:20 AM - 10:30 AM Request for Social Media Content emphasizing the natural resources and flora and fauna

of Southeast Texas. - Emilee Gerngross• 10:30 AM - 10:40 AM 3 Rivers Foundation Biodiversity and Educational Assistance - Christena Stephens• 10:40 AM - 10:50 AM Nature Notes Contributor - Rachel Powers• 10:50 AM - 11:00 AM BREAK• 11:00 AM - 11:10 AM Butterfly Monitoring - Irmi Willcockson• 11:10 AM - 11:20 AM Texas Butterfly Monitoring Co-coordinator - Irmi Willcockson• 11:20 AM - 11:30 AM Texas Aquatic Science Video and e-Book Production - Melissa Felty (Alderson)• 11:30 AM - 11:40 AM Adopt-A-Paddling Trail - Shelly Plante• 11:40 AM - 11:50 AM Monitoring Invasive Aquatic Species Through Birding - Alice Best• 11:50 AM - 12:00 PM Conclusion & Wrap Up

Thursday February 4th• 9:00 AM - 9:10 AM Introduction• 9:10 AM - 9:20 AM Bracken Cave Preserve video projects - Fran Hutchins• 9:20 AM - 9:30 AM City Nature Challenge 2021 in the Rio Grande Valley - Tony Henehan• 9:30 AM - 9:40 AM AquaPlant Website Review & Enhancement - Brittany Chesser• 9:40 AM - 9:50 AM Invasive Species Surveys and Verification - Angela England• 9:50 AM - 10:00 AM BREAK• 10:00 AM - 10:10 AM Adopt-A-Loop - Great Texas Wildlife Trails - Joshua Lee• 10:10 AM - 10:20 AM Fat Bat project - Fran Hutchins• 10:20 AM - 10:30 AM Story Time for Bats - Fran Hutchins• 10:30 AM - 10:40 AM Plant ID Bingo - Meg Inglis• 10:40 AM - 10:50 AM Aligning TPWD Educational Resources with the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills

(TEKS) - Louisa Torrance• 10:50 AM - 11:00 AM BREAK• 11:00 AM - 11:10 AM Texas Municipal Park Providers Inventory - Jamie Walker• 11:10 AM - 11:20 AM Aquatic Plant Photo Submission Round 2 - Brittany Chesser• 11:20 AM - 11:30 AM Armchair Botanist: Community Scientists Transcribing Specimen Labels - Tiana Rehman• 11:30 AM - 11:40 AM Horned Lizard Conservation Educational Materials - Mason Lee• 11:40 AM - 11:50 AM TPWD’s Texas Ecological Analytical Mapper user testing - GroundTruther tool - Wendy

Anderson• 11:50 AM - 12:00 PM Conclusion & Wrap Up

Virtual Volunteer Fair• Draft Catalog – *MP open it up

• Organization of Agendao First sessions each morning will be place based – organized by ecoregions and specific available chapterso Second half of mornings will be statewide based projects – available to all chapters

• VMS Team Preparing a ‘How To’ visual for logging hours

• IF we were to host another VVF (summer? fall?) would that be helpful and when would your members need it the most? *recognizing state capacity too!

• Questions?

What Nature Means?

• Video diary project that were shared on the Texas Master Naturalist website

• 31 videos, 12 written submissions • Including 3 poems! And one original song.

• Will Use & Re-use throughout year and following year

• Will revisit this Project in coming months too!

“In this unprecedented moment of pandemic, reflect upon what nature means to you and what benefits it provides you, especially in times like these.”

https://txmn.tamu.edu/nature-reflections/

Will re-open for insight in April 2021!

Save the Datefor 2021!

October 21-24, 2021

Dallas/Fort Worth Airport MarriottT e x a s M a s t e r N a t u r a l i s t 2 2 n d A n n u a l M e e t i n g

What does this look like to you?

So what are we doing?• Let’s poll the room to see what your thoughts are.

• Survey of membership – most likely this spring (March?)o Comfort levels with different scenarios . . .o What questions should we ask?

• Capacity issues with Hybrid Eventso Essentially hosting TWO events at the same time – one in person with full

staff and one virtually with full staff. . . .

• Investigating contract obligations with hotel. . .

2020 Against All Odds PIN• NEW 2020 PIN: Service Against All Odds – Through Grit &

Distanceo Your Hustle, Passion and Perseverance have not gone unnoticed!o For members who have logged:o 8 Hours AT - AND -o At LEAST 1 Hour of Volunteer Service

• Will be mailed to all chapters February 2021• VMS Reports will be pulled and Michelle will send a list of members who’ve

obtained the pin

2021 Pins Update• Presidential Volunteer Service Pin update - (4,000 hr)

o Shipping delayso New certification training & process . . .

• 2021 Recertification Pino Sideoats Gramao Available at the end of February

BASIC TRAINING Temporary Policy

ADVANCED TRAINING Temporary Policy

• TEMP POLICY: Allow for pre-recorded basic training sessions –with required follow up live Q&A with/by the same speaker(s)o Will allow for all (40)

planned basic training hours scheduled to be done in this manner

o Encourage this to be used minimally or only as needed

o Encourage regional/neighboring chapter basic training collaborative before going to this model

• TEMP POLICY: Will allow for pre-recorded AT sessions with follow up live Q&A with Speakers by the same speaker –hours for both watching & interaction with speaker will count

• NOT ALLOWED: NO fully recorded videos with NO speaker interaction

• GOAL here is to allow group discussion with speakers where Q&A happens in group setting/audience for group learning

Earning 2021

Certification2021 Certification Requirements we do not anticipate changing

• Together let’s further plan for and adapt for the situation we’re in.

• Anticipate the shifts, adaptations & innovations to obtaining these required certification hours.

VOLUNTEER SERVICE requirements NOT changing for 2021.

Board Leadership Retreats• Does your chapter have an annual/spring leadership retreat?

• As a result, what goals does your chapter have for this year?

Spring 2021 Training

Plans

• What happened in November?• Let’s start this over. . . • https://txmn.tamu.edu/winter-

spring-2021-basic-training-classes-starting-soon/

• Re-opened & resubmit by February 1st

• Will post final training press release that week

AgriLife Bookstorehttps://www.agrilifebookstore.org/category-s/1841.htm

More items coming soon!!

Best ordered in Bulk to

save Shipping!

Calendar Check - Looking Ahead• February 1st – Spring Training Plans Due to State Office• February 3rd & 4th – Virtual Volunteer Fair• February 9th – TMN Tuesday with Tallamy• February 15th – Cut off date for VMS December 31st 2020 Reporting• February 22nd – Next Chapter Presidents Meeting

• See you next month!