From Our Treasurer: Birding in a Trying Time

First, I think I can speak for the entire LCAS membership in expressing our condolences to everyone impacted by the recent wildfires. Our condolences also go out to all those affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Needless to say, 2020 has been a tough year for everyone.

LCAS wants to make things a little easier during these trying times by continuing to offer events that we hope redirect your mind and soul to the comforts of nature. We began offering live, virtual program meetings in September and will continue to do so throughout the fall and winter until conditions around the pandemic improve. (See Live on Zoom November Program meeting.)

If you missed our live virtual programs in previous months, they were recorded and are now available on our website laneaudubon.org. It’s been hard to give up the pleasure of seeing our members at the Garden Club each month, socializing with them, and enjoying the in-person presentations, but we want to protect our members’ health above all else.

Our monthly bird walks have followed a similar path. We encourage everyone to bird outdoors as much as possible and to follow safety guidelines when doing so. In early September, several of our members socially distanced themselves outdoors at Agate Hall to watch the Vaux’s Swifts migrating through, and we still can schedule small, socially distanced bird walks, if our members express an interest. You can keep abreast of these types of events by looking at this month’s Quail as well. 

Details about our two school programs—Audubon Adventures and Audubon in the Schools—are still being worked out for current school year and will depend heavily on what our local educators want and need in terms of bird-related materials for online teaching and—eventually—face-to-face classes. (See page 7.)

We’re grateful for technologies that allow us to interact with our members in new ways, and we can use our newfound knowledge to record our events and make them available on demand.

While the pandemic has affected many of the ways we operate, we still incur most of our annual operating expenses and depend greatly on your financial support. We value your membership in LCAS, and many of you have chosen to renew annually in November. You can check your Quail mailing label (or the email message with your Quail link if you receive it electronically) for your membership expiration date. You can renew online at laneaudubon.org/support/join.

We also keep our requests for gifts to a minimum, limiting our annual fundraising appeal to the month of November. Whether you can give a little or a lot, it will help us continue to produce The Quail and maintain a robust schedule of (now virtual) events, so thank you in advance for your help.

There are two ways to contribute: (1) mail your gift using the envelope inside this issue of The Quail, or (2) visit laneaudubon.org/support/donate to give online. Again, many thanks for supporting LCAS.