It’s no secret – we’re in the midst of a pandemic – which presents its own challenges to planning and holding an in-person event like our Annual Meeting. With state and national projections for COVID-19, the ORTWS Board voted to drastically alter our member services in 2021. As a creative group of individuals, we’re excited about the activities we’ve concocted to replace the ORTWS traditional in-person Annual Meeting we hold every February.
We recently polled our membership on different options and activities ORTWS wildlifers would be willing to engage in during this unprecedented time. We found that everyone was still overwhelmingly in support of an in-person event but were, understandably, apprehensive about what such an event would physically look like. Thus, the ORTWS Board has voted to hold the following events in lieu of our 2021 Annual Meeting:
Wildlife Webinar Series
The Wildlife Webinar Series will be a recurring series of wildlife-themed talks beginning January 2021. Our hope is this series will serve as a replacement for the sessions at our annual meeting and will provide a consistent and ongoing environment for wildlifers across the state to learn and engage with conspecifics. Similar to our traditional Annual Meeting, we have a Call for Abstracts where you can submit your proposals for webinar talks via this online form by September 31st, 2020. Talks and curated sessions will be selected and organized through the board and a program will be released in early December when registration opens. Each session will be 2 hours long with 3-4 presentations followed by a Q&A session and virtual discussion. We look forward to seeing what you submit in the upcoming months!
Fall Wildlifer Retreat
With COVID-19 protocols securely in place, we’re all craving a bit of face-to-face (or mask-to-mask?) human contact. The membership was clear that one of the biggest draws of the Annual Conference was the chance to get peer networking opportunities. We thought the pandemic gave us the perfect opportunity to think outside the box and into . . . the forest. Our vision is to plan a Fall retreat sometime in August or September 2021 that will involve a weekend of camping and a Saturday of planned events culminating in a plenary speaker, BBQ (governor’s orders permitting), and jam session. We hope to provide field training, restoration opportunities, and/or naturalist lessons. As you can see we are still in the planning stages but we know it will be fun, inspirational and full of nature and friends! If you have any incredible ideas don’t hesitate to email meghanmartin@ortws.org.
Look for more updates on both of these events in the coming months.