2021 Annual Meeting Success

Who Participated
The 2021 Friends Annual Meeting was held on February 27 and drew participants from Michigan, Ohio, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Minnesota, and Colorado, as well as from Florida cities including Jacksonville, Suwannee, Cedar Key, and Gainesville. That was an unexpected bonus, due to the pandemic, from having the meeting on Zoom!

What We Did
The team had to get creative to make the virtual meeting more interesting, but the agenda followed the format of a typical annual meeting:

• Outgoing president John McPherson kicked things off with a review of how the organization operated during the pandemic
• The slate of Officers and Directors for the coming term was voted on
• Refuge Manager Andrew Gude gave an update on the many activities accomplished throughout the year
• Newly elected President Peg Hall discussed several topics including an update of the Friends' website, the partnership agreement with USFWS, and the Vista Project (historical preservation of a hunting and fishing camp on the Suwannee River)
• Board member Debbie Jordan gave an update on the newly launched online store, and the travels of our own Suwannee the Swallow-tail Kite
• Treasurer Linda Kimball gave the financial update
• Dr. Ginessa Mahar was the featured speaker with her informative and entertaining presentation on Friends, Feasts, and Fishes: Facilitating Ancient Gatherings within the Lower Suwannee Region

Click to see short bios of the board officers and directors

Click for the Refuge Update

Click for the Friends Update slide show

Photos from the Featured Presentation

Poll taking
Two polls were administered throughout the meeting. The first asked participants how many had visited the Refuge during the pandemic (~55% responded in the affirmative) - that fit with Andrew's report that visitation was way up as people really wanted to get out and about, and the Refuge was one of the go-to destinations for north Florida folks. The second poll asked participants to vote on the proposed slate of officers and directors (100% affirmative).

Welcome to the Meet and Greet Session. Click the arrow to watch the panel being drawn.

Let's get creative
Perhaps the most creative and divergent approach to this year's virtual meeting was the use of graphic recorder, Karina Branson of ConverSketch. The process involves drawing content-rich colorful illustrations highlighting the salient points of presentations and discussions. The end products, below, provide visually appealing documents for historical records of meetings.

Click on the arrows below each panel to watch a time-lapse video of Karina drawing it in real time, as the presentation was happening.

Update by Refuge Manager Andrew Gude

Friends Update by Peg Hall, Debbie Jordan, Linda Kimball

Featured Presentation by Ginessa Mahar