 This year’s event will mark the Texas Master
Naturalist Program’s 18th Annual Meeting and will be the 19th
year of the program. This year’s meeting will be held at the Omni Corpus Christi the weekend of October 20th through 22nd,
2017.
We are pleased to extend an invitation to ALL Texas Master Naturalist Program volunteers, along with all other program affiliates. This includes those certified volunteers, those still in training, program administrators and advisors of local chapters, and your local chapter partners, sponsors, or special guests. This year’s gathering has several chapter enhancement and Advanced Training topics to choose from. Our social times, chapter project fair showcase and round table discussions will offer great opportunities to meet your fellow Texas Master Naturalist peers from our 48 Chapters across the state and share new ideas from the past year.
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Check out our website for more information:
 Our
skeleton agenda with event details and times has been posted (see link below). A full agenda
with technical sessions listed will be shared later this summer. Please note,
all agenda items are tentative at this time, except for meal times. Registration costs are also on the skeleton agenda,
along with the accommodations for each registration level. As in
years past, registration includes signing up for technical sessions and field
session attendance as many of the classrooms and space available on the field
sessions is limited. Please prepare before registration opens with your preferred
attendance at sessions. Our field sessions typically fill up very quickly.
All hotel room reservations will be made through
the TMN Annual Meeting Registration Page. Please DO NOT call the Omni Corpus
Christi to book a room.
Registration is expected to open the first week of August.
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 The Rio Grande Valley Chapter will be hosting
the 18th Annual Meeting’s Silent Auction. As they begin to develop their
requests for donations, be thinking of items that your local chapter or local
partnership organizations can donate to this year’s Silent Auction. Money raised by
the Silent Auction is used for TMN project grants, scholarships to the Annual
Meeting, and to bring in speakers and trainers for future annual meetings.
Please let the Rio Grande Chapter know
in advance what you plan to contribute so we can plan the space accordingly. Linda Butcher of the Rio Grande Valley Chapter is chair for the Silent
Auction, if you have questions, contact her at: thetxbirdlady@netscape.net
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2016 Chpater Project Fair Displays
The
Texas Master Naturalist Program holds this competition during our Annual
Meeting each year to share and award the premier projects of the TMN Program.
Members continually list this method as a favorite way to learn about projects
other chapters are doing and how they may be able to replicate such projects in
their areas. Last year’s
first place winning Project Fair entry by the Galveston Bay Area Chapter, the
Plastic Pollution Prevention Project, has since been nationally recognized with the 2017 EPA/Gulf
of Mexico Program award in the civic/non-profit category.
Chapters
entering a display into the contest will need to provide a short paragraph
describing the project no later than Friday, October 6th,
2017 to Michelle Haggerty at: mmhaggerty@tamu.edu
Awards
this year are being supported by the Texas Master Naturalist Program.
Full details on this year’s
Project Fair guidelines can be found here: TMN
Project Fair 2017
The Photo, Art &
Media Contest Chair for the 2017 Annual Meeting is Jerrel Geisler from the Gulf
Coast Chapter.
The Photo,
Art & Media Contest at the Annual Meeting has ten categories. If no
one from your chapter will be attending the Annual Meeting, yet you would like
to still enter a chapter item into the popular vote contests, please send the
chapter item to Michelle Haggerty at 309 Sydney Baker South,
Kerrville, TX 78028.
Entries must be
submitted by 9:00 PM on Friday, October 20th (the opening
day of the Annual Meeting). The entries must be labeled with the owners name,
chapter, cell phone number, category and title of the work.
All entries must be the
original work of and submitted by a Master Naturalist volunteer. Entries are limited to one per category per
individual.
More information can be found here: TMN Photo, Art & Media Contest Rules
Did you know that you can earn all of your Advanced Training requirements for certification in one weekend by attending the Annual meeting?
 This year has filled the outdoors with new life
and activities. Take advantage of this time to Create a New Video, highlighting
a(n)
›
Experience
as a Trainee
›
Experience
as a Master Naturalist, or
›
Chapter
Project.
Set your length goal for 1 minute, 30 seconds to
3 minutes max. The videos will be posted on the Texas Master Naturalist
Playlist on YouTube. See samples of last year’s winners at: 2016 Video Contest
Submissions
including First Place winner by the North Texas Chapter. You can either upload
the video to YouTube or send an .mp4 or YouTube ready video file to mmhaggerty@tamu.edu
The deadline for entry is Friday, September 22nd. The top three videos will be announced and
receive an award at the 18th Annual Meeting Awards Ceremony Sunday morning.
Additional
guidelines for this year’s contest can be found here: 4th Annual Video Contest
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The Texas Master Naturalist Program presents the Chapter Advisor Award to outstanding advisors and/or teams of advisors each year. The goal of the awards program is to encourage and recognize exceptional work and support of local Texas Master Naturalist Chapter advisors. The Chapter Advisor Team category recognizes the exceptional support of TMN chapter advisors working in partnership to support a chapter, just as the TMN program is supported by a partnership between Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service at the statewide level.
Applications, nomination information, and picture(s) should be submitted electronically to Michelle Haggerty at mmhaggerty@tamu.edu by September 1st.
Chapters are invited to nominate the advisor(s)
for the award(s) by completing the Chapter Advisor Awards Application
We look forward to seeing you in Corpus Christi!
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