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Starting a New Bird Club

"Why don't you start a bird club?" We were asked that question a dozen times or more in the first few years after we moved to Transylvania County, in western North Carolina. For not only did my husband, Bill, and I share an intense interest in birding, but we had quickly taken over -- by default, by design, or by accident -- nearly all the local birding events. And despite an ongoing interest in birds among many county residents, there had never been a bird club here.

"Why don't you start one?" we were asked, again and again.

But we held back. We knew that a successful bird club would demand a lot of our time, more than we felt we could give at that period of our lives. We were still new here, still getting used to life in a different part of the country, still feeling our way among a multitude of interests. We weren't ready.

So we just went on with our regular birding activities, compiling the Christmas and spring bird counts, coordinating the state's breeding bird atlas work for our rural county, running the breeding bird survey route each spring. We taught a few semesters of introductory birding in the adult education department at the local community college. We began writing a weekly column on birds for a local newspaper. We were, without realizing it, "networking." We were busy.

But then there came a day, after perhaps five years of this "building" activity, when it was no longer enough. When all at once we, too, wished there were a local bird club. And when we heard our own voices asking, "Why don't you start a bird club?" we knew it was time to do just that.

We announced our intentions at the annual wine-and-cheese roundup for the Christmas Bird Count, and set a mid-January 1991 date for an organizational meeting at our home. There was an immediate murmur of approval, and about 20 people signaled their intention to come. We were on our way.

In our own minds we pictured a club that would meet once a month and have a field trip at least that often, not unlike the group we had belonged to when we lived in New York. But when those 20 people got together to discuss the idea, one thing was quickly apparent: They were more interested in field trips than in meetings. Some wanted no meetings at all! A compromise was soon reached, scheduling five meetings a year, plus the Christmas Count roundup. And we would have a field trip every single week, year-round.

Wow.

It wasn't what we had expected. But it looked like fun, and everyone was enthusiastic. We drew up a schedule for the first month. Then we "elected" officers -- that is, we called for volunteers. To no one's surprise, I became the first president; I knew no one else would want that job at the beginning, and I was prepared to do it. But to our relief we had no trouble getting volunteers to hold the other offices, even the usually shunned (but very important) position of treasurer.

When you really need people, a few seem to turn up.

Other things decided at that first organizational meeting were our name -- Transylvania County Bird Club, or TCBC -- and our dues, ten dollars per address. We knew our main expense would be the printing and mailing of schedules, and we kept the dues as low as we could -- and still cover those costs.

We agreed that, in keeping with the informality we all sought, we would not bother with such things as a constitution and bylaws. After all, one new member remarked, if Great Britain has held itself together for a thousand years with an unwritten constitution, we ought to be able to manage too.

We set our first formal meeting for late February 1991, and a dozen of us agreed to present an extemporaneous program on "Tools of the Trade," discussing binoculars, field guides, tapes, and other birding essentials. It would be, principally, a get-acquainted time. We were able to secure a free meeting place at a Brevard retirement center (that was important; if we'd had to pay for meeting space, we couldn't have kept dues so low), and we began to spread the word.

Before the meeting, however, we had our first few field trips, and with the help of sunny skies and a small item in the newspaper we drew 30 people or more for several weeks in a row. The fact that we found few birds on these excursions did not dampen spirits in the least. This is beautiful country, and it's always a pleasure to be outdoors, especially with like-minded people.

On meeting night, we were astounded to see nearly 60 men and women file into the small auditorium. Some were just curious, but most were genuinely interested in birds. We'd met many of them at one time or another during our various birding activities here.

Nearly all paid their ten dollars and joined on the spot. The impromptu program was well received, and when we walked out that evening, we had a really viable bird club with a membership totaling more than 70.

We were amazed. Transylvania County, tucked away in the Blue Ridge mountains, boasts a population of just 26,000 people scattered among its 257 square miles. Brevard, with fewer than 6,000 residents, is the only city. Many who attended that meeting had to drive 30 minutes or more over winding mountain roads just to get there. Yet we had a far larger attendance here than we ever achieved in our urban New York club, despite its much greater population base.

In the two years since, we have never had fewer than 40 at a meeting, with 50 the average. Field trip attendance varies widely according to weather, time of year, and destination, but it averages 15, which is a good manageable number. And now, in our third year, we have nearly 100 memberships representing about 150 individuals.

It may be time to reflect on what it is we've done right (and how we've corrected those things that went wrong) in order to get where we are today.

We began with a few pluses, to be sure. Transylvania County has a large number of active retirees, many of whom were drawn here by the area's natural beauty. Such people are a ready-made audience for a bird club's message. And with no other bird clubs anywhere in the region, we had no competition.

Then too, Brevard has a 20-year history of bird counts, with a core of some 25 men and women who have participated for years. All except two of this group joined the new club -- which proves, I suppose, that you really can't please everybody, can you?

Finally, our own "Birds in Focus" column had been appearing for about four years and had enabled us to meet many local residents whose interest in birds had been lifelong.

Even with those advantages, however, it would have been easy to go wrong. If we've prospered, it may be because of the following:

1. We started small. That is, we planned nothing, at first, except local field trips and a few informal meetings. We didn't over-organize, and we took special care not to create unnecessary jobs for anyone.
2. We welcomed beginners. We've discovered that one of the most satisfactory aspects of birding is introducing someone to the hobby and watching his or her awareness grow. To this end we have lightheartedly created a "Rookie of the Year" award for our most avid beginners. Some who took up birding only after the club was formed are among our most active (and knowledgeable) members now.
3. We encourage sociability. There's a lot of chatter and more than a little laughter as our field trips get underway, and sometimes even during them, when the birds are scarce. We don't discourage this at all.
4. We offer variety. Field trips, scheduled on alternating Fridays and Saturdays to accommodate school and work schedules, may be a leisurely stroll around the Brevard College campus, or an all-day trek to Lake Jocassee, in South Carolina. Meeting topics have ranged from a talk by a local birding supply store owner to a Cuban ornithologist's description of the difficulties of birding in one of the world's last Communist strongholds. We try to have something for every level of birding expertise.
5. We changed what didn't work. Field trips scheduled year-round seemed like a good idea in January, but we forgot how people tend to go away in summer -- and how our forest birds seem to disappear too. The July and August schedule just wasn't worth the effort, so we discarded it in 1992, substituting a picnic in late July instead.
6. We gave it our time. Bill and I attended every club event, every meeting, every field trip, for the first two years. I wrote the press releases and put together the monthly schedules and, later, the newsletter. I bought the stamps and handled the mailings. Now that patterns and habits have become established, others have begun to take over these jobs, but we felt that if we'd tried to involve too many people at the beginning, our efforts might have been fragmented. A new club needs two or three people dedicated to its existence.
7. We have welcomed help when it was offered. The officers and active members have been quick to see needs, and to fill them. For example:
   
   • Becky thought it would be nice to have refreshments at meetings, so she organized a committee and sees that it is done.
   • Jennifer thought the club ought to record its history, so she bought a scrapbook, collected newspaper clippings and photos, and became the club historian.
   • Whitey, alias Harry the Hacker, offered his Macintosh computer for all sorts of projects. First he made our mailing labels and an official membership list. Next he suggested a checklist of county birds and, with all of our input, produced one. Now he and his wife, Mary, are taking my cut-and-paste newsletters and turning out camera-ready copy.
   • Sylvia offered her personal copier to reproduce the newsletters, saving the treasury hundreds of dollars a year in duplicating costs.
8. We received outside support -- from BWD! Our treasury was helped by the BWD club subscription program, which returns half of each new subscriber's first year fee to participating clubs. This can be a big financial boost to a fledgling -- or mature -- organization.

It has been endless fun to see this club grow and evolve -- to be in on the making of traditions. The Christmas Count roundup, now a covered-dish supper, has become so popular that eight couples held off holiday travel plans last year so they wouldn't miss it. More than 50 people packed our house for that event. In a similar vein, we now regularly gather at a local restaurant for dinner before our meetings. This practice began with a few of the officers treating a visiting speaker, and it has now expanded to include about 25 of us each time. Our most recent guest, ornithologist Dr. Hal Mahan, remarked as he watched the shouts and hugs accompanying each arrival, "You sure do have a convivial group!" He could hardly believe the club was barely two years old at the time.

On the more serious side, we've learned a lot about local birds in those two years. We have instituted a woodcock week in March and a whip-poor-will watch in late April, trying to map the territories of these nighttime singers. We now know where and when to find pectoral sandpipers, American pipits, bobolinks. We've set up a hot line so we can quickly pass the news that we've found singing golden-winged warblers or the county's first breeding grasshopper sparrows. On one of our early field trips we discovered a pine siskin nest, one of the first ever documented in North Carolina. Hardly a day goes by that we don't hear from one or another of the club's members with news of a new bird seen, a good location found, an interesting fact discovered.

We never dreamed it would be this good.

So (bet you thought we'd never ask), why don't you start a bird club?

Can you do it, if there is no club in your area? You sure can, though what you end up with may be nothing like ours. Probably the most important thing we've learned from our experience is that you have to tailor your club to the people it serves. The relaxed approach that has worked in Transylvania County may not be right for a group of energetic listers. An urban club might find itself turning to environmental activism. Others might want to take a more intellectual approach, using the club as a seminar to study birds. There are a lot of niches to fill. The trick is in discovering which one is right for you.

As for us, we're very glad we finally heeded that voice and acted on that insistent question. Starting a bird club just might be one of the best things we ever did.