Nature Club Meetup Group

# Fall Clean-Up and Habitat Restoration Day

• Saturday, November 8, 2025
• 2:00 PM 4:00 PM
• Burroughs Wildlife Sanctuary (map)

Help get the sanctuary ready for winter!
We will need to move the leaves off the parking lot and onto the property where they can feed and shelter sanctuary critters even while they turn into soil for sanctuary plants. Volunteers will also be able to help take care of other important tasks along the boardwalks and trails and in the clubhouse before winter arrives, including helping with ongoing habitat restoration projects.
Bring your work gloves, a rake, and water. Light refreshments will be provided.
If you are not able to do the labor, feel free to come and enjoy our beautiful Sanctuary and cheer the workers on.
Students and scouts can receive service credit hours for joining the fun.

# 2025 Annual Meeting and Member Experience Night

• Friday, November 14, 2025
• 7:30 PM 9:00 PM
• Atonement Lutheran Church (map)

We are pleased to hold our 2025 Annual Meeting/Experience Night in person again, this coming November! We will hold this meeting at Atonement Lutheran Church where we had met a few years ago. At the Annual Meeting, we will have the President’s Report from Jane McConnochie, and our election of officers for 2026. This will be followed by Experience Night which is always a treat! Our members share a love for nature and many are very knowledgeable! Come and share this exciting event…and participate, if you so choose. Read a favorite nature poem, share a work you have painted, present a PowerPoint, relay an interesting experience you have had this past year. The possibilities are endless!
If you would like to join the list of presenters, please call Richard Ashworth at 381-2189 or e-mail him at ashworth@rochester.rr.com.

# Death in the National Parks: Who, How, and Why

• Friday, January 9, 2026
• 7:30 PM 9:00 PM
• Zoom (map)

Why do some people lose their lives in America’s national parks? Randi Minetor, author of nine books in the non-fiction "Death in the National Parks" series, explores the fatal mistakes people make when they venture into unfamiliar wilderness.
Some forget critical steps in their preparation, forging off into wild lands far too challenging for their level of experience. Some refuse advice, ignoring weather reports and warnings from rangers and more seasoned adventurers. Some take unnecessary chances or overestimate their own skill level. Others are simply in the wrong place at the right time, becoming victims of a lightning strike or a falling rock, or camping on the night when grizzly bears’ perception of human beings turned from seeing them as a source of food to seeing them as food. And some fall prey to other people who set out to kill them, banking on the seclusion of the backcountry, the lack of witnesses, and the likelihood that high cliffs or deep canals will hide their misdeeds forever.
Randi shares highlights of her in-depth research and what it reveals about the people who perish in the parks. She offers insights about why people are driven to challenge themselves in the wilderness no matter the odds against their safe return and provides helpful tips on how to avoid your own disaster in a national park.​

Registration is required for our Zoom programs. To register, click here.
Everyone who registers will be sent a link for Zoom the day before the meeting.