TN-Birders and Winter Meeting participants: When you arrive at Dayton for the Winter Meeting of the Tennessee Ornithological Society this weekend, you should seek out a few really neat people I am going to mention and thank them for making this meeting possible. If you don't get to thank anyone else, at least give a big pat on the back to Dan Mooney and Laurie Mooney of Knoxville and President Elect Danny Gaddy of Chattanooga. Those three had dreams of bringing birders and TOS together at Dayton to showcase the Smith Bend/Yuchi Refuge, owned by the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency. They had originally talked about a fall meeting. Yuchi is a project in the making as TWRA is restoring wetlands, sowing native grasses and trees. It was heavily funded by a major contribution from the Tennessee Ornithological Society. It will long be part of the proud legacy of TOS in the years to come. The refuge is a unique 2,500 acre tract on the Tennessee River, with three miles of riverfront, 1,000 acres of wetland and 1,500 acres of upland forest. They believe we should all see it for ourselves. When TOS considered discontinuing the Annual Winter Meeting due to a lack of attendance in past winters, the Mooney's stuck their necks out big and offered to tackle the most difficult job of putting on the winter meeting and getting people to attend. That took real courage. Their determination and leadership became the foundation on which the 2005 Winter Meeting has developed. The Bristol Bird Club signed on as a sponosor with Knoxville and Chattanooga. The Bristol contribution was to help organize and conduct field trips for Saturday and Sunday. The BBC selected leaders for the field trips -- Daniel Moss and Charlie Muise. Gaddy took responsibilty for developing the evening programs, getting the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency involved and the Operation Migration speaker to make a presentation. Working with the TOS President Virginia Reynolds, a sechedule of TOS committee meetings was arranged. Reynolds had earlier told Gaddy that he had her blessings to work on behalf of the state TOS to pursure the meeting effort. Danny brought an interesting group of partners to the table and the 2005 Winter Meeting was underway. On Dec. 12, Gaddy held a "President Elect's Round Table" breakfast meeting in Johnson City. TOS leaders from throughout East Tennessee came and spent the night in a hotel. The group conveined the next morning. All East Tennessee TOS Chapters were represented -- Chattanooga, Knoxville, Greeneville, Elizabethton and Bristol. The meeting was open to anyone and several birders came to get involved in the process. The group determined that the clubs are so close and highways are so good that we can easily muster a lot of people to work in cooperation as clubs. The Winter Meeting at Dayton was a great place to start. Gaddy wanted to set a model for teaming together with people from over a wide area. Some of us remembered when the Greeneville Chapter TOS would host all the East Tennessee clubs at a weekend birding roundup at a church camp in Cosby near the Great Smoky Mountains National Park each fall. Jean Alexander and David Johnson, members of the Knoxville Chapter from Maryville, were busy handling motel logistics and scouting out meeting sights at Dayton. They have worked hard. Mike Roedel, state ornithologist with the TWRA in Nashville, worked with his supervisor Richard Kirk to arrange for regional people from all over the state to come. Kirk will be a major presenter Saturday night. Dan Mooney worked with Chuch Nicholson of the Knoxville TOS to get excellent information up on the TOS web page to promote the meeting. TN-Birds net was used to attract more state birders and those who are not members of TOS to come an participate. Knoxville TOS President Charlie Musie became a leading architect of ideas for the winter meeting. He has worked to present good ideas for the meeting. In addition to leading two field trips he will also make a presentation on the new state bird monitoring effort he is heading. Ken Dubke has made several trips to Dayton to work on logistcis for meetings and to secure a local dinning room so participants can gather on Saturday night and eat together. He has talked almost daily with Gaddy to share details, ideas and learn how he can make his usual good contributions. The Bristol Bird Club has worked to get the field trips lined up and share information with everyone. We wanted everyone to be as informed of the joint effort being made by lots of birders and several chapters to pull togehter for the coming weekend. Be sure and tell these people how much you appreciate the effort. Don't miss visiting the TOS website at: http://www.tnbirds.org/Winter05-meeting.htm for more details about the Winter Meeting and excellent maps of the areas. Let's go to Dayton...... Wallace Coffey Bristol, TN =================NOTES TO SUBSCRIBER===================== The TN-Bird Net requires you to sign your messages with first and last name, city (town) and state abbreviation. ----------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------- To post to this mailing list, simply send email to: tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx ----------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, send email to: tn-bird-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * TN-Bird Net is owned by the Tennessee Ornithological Society Neither the society(TOS) nor its moderator(s) endorse the views or opinions expressed by the members of this discussion group. Moderator: Wallace Coffey, Bristol, TN wallace@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Visit the Tennessee Ornithological Society web site at http://www.tnbirds.org * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Topographical Maps located at http://topozone.com/find.asp * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ========================================================