How can our club/forum be better?

[NAU Wildlife Society Admin]

Any ideas on how we could make our club/forum/website any greater than it already is? Please share them with us! Also, if you have any ideas for future club events, we'd love to hear them!

[Whiskey Jack]

How can we make the forum more interesting folks? There are a good number of members on here, but many don't type much, if at all. Is something missing from the forum? What do you think? Maybe we could try to outreach to other wildlife groups besides our own to make a larger more interesting forum.....

[apachebow]

Hello all,

I'm brand new to the board and very much appreciate being invited through the TWS national list serve.

I live in the White Mountains and am working in Adult Basic Education because I can't find a job in wildlife out here, however, I have a few things in the works. But that's not what I wanted to talk about.

I am pleased this forum exists, it's very professional and high tech and I am impressed. AZ needs something like this because, in my opinion, the AZ chapter is a snoozer. I came from another chapter which is very active and has a lot going on. Here I hear from AZ chapter maybe 1 time per year!

As far as what to discuss (I like the sitings thread), I'll have to ponder it a while. But, what I'd like to see is members try to support each other by giving sources, resources, encouragement and the like, instead of cutting each other down. The national list serve has had a lot of problems with certain persons who believe their ideas are wholly and indesputably correct and will chop anyone off at the knees who dares take another point of view.

I think as I mentioned earlier, what we need on this board is local networking and support since Northern Arizona is so spread out, and each individual community is so small, it can make finding the right people and resources very difficult.

Once again, I really appreciate being invited.

[Whiskey Jack]

Hi Apachebow, thank you so much for joining!
I completley agree with you on the need for encouragement amongst us all.....on this particular forum we have a vast array of view points, and some are complete opposites from one another, yet above all, we have agreed to give respect to one another. With respect, we can argue with one another till the cows come home, and still maintain the friendships.
I look forward to talking more with you Apachebow, you speak the truth.

[Mayra Moreno]

We need to have a section where we talk about the Feb meeting... to invite those that out there to help out!
It would be great

[NAU Wildlife Society Admin]

I know how NAU TWS could be better! Use the forum! ;D

[Whiskey Jack]

I have an idea for a community service event that the NAU TWS would be perfect for. When I was a member, I tried too late to present this idea to the club (end of Spring semester) and nothing came of it because we ran out of time.

So here it goes.......

There are a ton of glass buildings around the NAU campus (and it seems new ones popping up all over the place), and I have seen an increase in bird deaths due to window collisions. A rock dove here, a nuthatch there, and those are just the ones I happen to stumble across. Though the jury is definitly out on the practicality of falcon sillouettes in windows, I always figured that it was better safe then sorry, and so everytime I see one stuck in a window somewhere I figure it has saved at least a handful of birds. A lot of research done on hanging reflective CD's in windows has shown that it is a huge deturrent for birds, but I bet falcon silouettes would go over better with each building manager then would hanging CD's from suction cups on all the windows.

If the NAU TWS could spearhead some kind of project hitting up the building managers with this proposal (especially buildings with features like the huge glass front of the ARD buildling, the glass tunnel that connects the Bio building and the Wettaw building, etc.) it could probably save countless birds, and add to the list of worthwhile service projects that you already do, with the added benifit of it being right here on campus.

What do you think?

[Whiskey Jack]

Are folks having trouble finding the forum?

If so, maybe someone could send an e-mail with a link to the forum to all the folks on the NAU Wildlife Society list? If folks can't find it, that would be a good way to send the info.

Also if you google NAU Wildlife Society Forum, it is the third hit down, so that is another way to locate it (besides the link on the first page of the website)