New members on Friends Board

​Things have looked a bit different this year. We’ve grown accustomed to donning a new accessory on our faces, replaced intimate Friends field trips with solitary audio walks through the Preserve, and even experienced our first virtual Friends Annual meeting. We’ve changed how our organization operates out of necessity, but we hope that there is preservation of some aspects as well. 
 
We hope that you still teem with admiration for the outdoors as you brave chillier weather to watch carotenoid-rich leaves color the Preserve trails in a soft orange hue. We hope that with our audio trail and phenology resources, you’ve still been able to both immerse yourself in nature and learn about the history and biological cycles of the land surrounding you. Finally, we hope that you as Friends members can help continue the tradition of enthusiastically welcoming our newly elected Friends board members and warmly thanking our retiring board members. 
 
Under normal circumstances, you as the Friends membership would’ve had an opportunity to meet and speak with our new and retiring board members in person at our Annual meeting. You would’ve been able to bond with them over a shared memorable experience at a Friend’s birding outing or volunteer work shift. So, we are hoping that you will be able to help us welcome and thank our board members in a slightly different way this year…
 
We welcome you all to both like and comment with on this blog post as a way of virtually joining us in welcoming our newly elected board members: ​Nancy Breden, Tom Bryan, Matt Chotlos, Kelly Kearns, Paul Quinlan, Steve Sentoff, and Will Vuyk. We hope you are as excited as we are to have these new members join our leadership team and work collaboratively with us to uphold the mission of the Friends!

Matt Chotlos

Will Vuyk

Sarah Congdon

​Additionally, we are hoping you will also use the comment section to join us in expressing appreciation for our retiring board member, Sarah Congdon, who has been so involved with designing our newsletters and Annual meeting posters and postcards. We are so grateful for the time and talents Sarah has provided the Friends over the course of her three-year term with us. We will certainly miss Sarah, but we wish her all the best with her future endeavors. 
 
We thank you, our membership, for your flexibility and engagement. We hope you all are staying healthy and happy during these unusual times and we look forward to the future when we can see you all again in at our in-person Friends events! Reported by Board member Olympia Mathiaparanam

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Nancy Breden

Steve Sentoff

Kelly Kearns

Tom Bryan