BirdLife Melbourne President’s Report for 2017
This is my second year as President of BirdLife Melbourne and I would first like to thank all those who help in running the branch. We continue to provide activities for our members and the public, while supporting the work of BirdLife Australia. In turn, we are supported by National Office staff and volunteers who assist with enquiries and give talks, in particular Fiona Blandford, the Network Development Coordinator, who helps us with running the branch
Our membership continues to grow and is now over 2700. We are the largest BirdLife branch, with approximately 20% of total BirdLife membership.
Outings:
Our events continue to grow in popularity. Many people co-ordinate or lead activities. Co-ordinators are Diane Tweeddale (Weekdays’ Outings), Hazel and Alan Veevers (Beginners’ Outings), Maryanne Anderson (Yellingbo birdwalks), Peter Bennet (Photography Group) and Mike Carter (Eastern Treatment Plant surveys).
We held a popular barbeque at Jells Park, where we got to enjoy some good birding and socialising with members.
Communications:
Due to increasing costs, we are no longer able to produce a paper newsletter and communication with members is now mainly electronic.
E-news, an email newsletter, is sent to all members and contains details of activities and news articles.
Adriana Bianchi uploads items such as outing reports to the Blog, with the assistance of others.
Bill Ramsay maintains the local Melbourne website, and Owen Lishmund updates the Melbourne section of the BirdLife website. Both of these websites have details of our activities. There is also a Facebook page which promotes our activities to a wider group, including non-members – thanks to Owen and Sonja Ross in particular for their regular posts.
Meetings and Education:
Bill Ramsay has retired after many years of arranging the speakers for the Balwyn meetings. The committee are currently arranging speakers for the Balwyn and Carlton meetings, but it would be great to have someone to help out with this role. We have continued our arrangement with BirdLife Victoria for shared monthly meetings at Carlton, generally on alternate months.
Bill, along with Graeme Hosken, still provides great help in setting up the meetings. Thanks to Daphne Hards, who recorded the meetings, with Heather Mitchener and Janet Hand providing the refreshments. While Scot Sharman welcomes visitors at Carlton, we don’t currently have a dedicated person to do this, and update the name badges, at Balwyn.
We hosted the launch of the new book, Australasian Eagles and Eagle-like Birds, by Stephen Debus, which was a popular event. We also held a fun Christmas quiz hosted by Sean Dooley.
Janet Hand co-ordinates our Education activities and provides many of these herself, doing around 30 talks in a year. Gay Gallagher and many others also help out Janet.
Melbourne Water Surveys:
Scot Sharman co-ordinates and produces reports for the Melbourne Water Dandenong Catchment Surveys. Volunteers from BirdLife Melbourne are now surveying 8 sites, providing useful information for this survey, which has now been running for 10 years.
Committee
The committee members give time to enable BirdLife Melbourne to continue to grow and develop. I would like to thank Philip Peel and Mark Hall, who have now left, for their enthusiasm during their time on the committee. I would like to welcome Mike Honeyman to the committee and hope that other members will volunteer to give some time to help us.
We appreciate the members who take part in our activities and meetings and are happy to receive any suggestions or comments.
Alan Crawford