Photo
by Tom Harbron
About Our Chapter
goals • membership • newsletter • board • history
The
Robert Cooper Audubon Society, Inc. (RCAS), is a regional chapter of the
National Audubon Society, serving approximately
500 members in east central Indiana, in Blackford, Delaware, Grant, Henry,
Jay, Madison, and Randolph Counties.
We meet the second Monday of every month, excluding July and August, for a program about nature, natural history, or conservation. We also organize six or more field trips each year. Non-Audubon members are invited to any and all chapter activities, and most events do not require a fee. Monthly meetings are held at Minnetrista in Muncie, Indiana.
We are a 501(c)(3) organization, and your gifts are tax-deductible.
Our goals are to protect and enhance the quality of our natural environment; educate our members and others about the natural world and the special relationship that humans have with it; serve our members by providing educational programs, field trip activities, and other programs of interest; and to advance the goals and activities of the National Audubon Society.
Put more simply, we join with one another in enjoying, learning about, and protecting our natural surroundings, especially the birds that share it with us.
Membership
All individuals from our seven-county region who join the National Audubon Society are automatically assigned to membership in the Robert Cooper Audubon Society. They then receive the Audubon magazine five times a year, as well as The Chat, the official newsletter of the RCAS, which is published ten times each year.
To become a member of the RCAS and the National Audubon Society, at an introductory rate of $20 per year ($35 per year thereafter), visit the Audubon website. Be sure to mention our chapter code – H07 – when you join.
For those who wish to join the Robert Cooper Audubon Society but not the National Audubon Society, we offer chapter-only memberships, separate from National Audubon Society membership.
Thanks to a gradual reduction in funding that the National Audubon Society passes on to local chapters, like ours, only about $2.50 of your National Audubon Society membership fees support our chapter.
If you become a member of the Robert Cooper Audubon Society, you will not receive the Audubon magazine, but you'll gain the satisfaction of knowing that your donation will go entirely to the support of our chapter and its activities in East Central Indiana.
Your direct financial support of our chapter allows the following activities to continue:
- • Monthly program meetings, with top-notch speakers and presentations about nature, natural history, and conservation
- • Printing of our chapter newsletter, The Chat
- • Conservation efforts in our area
- • Our annual fall picnic
- • Purchase of Audubon Adventures education kits for local elementary school classrooms
- • Field trips and the many other activities that our chapter undertakes each year, to help us fulfill our mission to protect and enjoy nature together in East Central Indiana
Click here to download a membership form, then return it to Jane Duckworth, Membership Committee co-chair, at the address indicated.
Starting January 1, 2008, all chapter-only
memberships now follow the calendar year, January to December. Individuals
who join the chapter or renew their membership after May of any given
year will have their membership run through December of the following
year.
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Our newsletter, The Chat, which is normally published September through June, can be viewed and downloaded from your computer – saving money for our chapter and paper resources for all of us.
Click to download the Chat in .pdf format. Click here if you need to download Acrobat Reader (free).
The Chat contains articles and features (including "The Bird of the Month," written by Helen Twibell) that aren't found in the website.
The following board is serving an 18-month period, through June 30, 2009:
President: Bonnie Nicholson
Vice-President: Jon Creek
Recording Secretary: Barb Butler
Treasurer: . .Nona Nunnelly
Directors 2006-08: Dave Cramer and Jane Duckworth
Directors 2007-09: Marcia Johnson and Phil Tuttle
Conservation Chair: Charlie Mason
Education Chair: Pam Kistler
Field trip Chair: Blanche Townsend
Hospitality Chair: Cynda Turner
Membership Co-Chairs: Jane Duckworth and Lis Mitchell
Program Chair: Bonnie Nicholson
Publicity Chair: Barb Stedman
Newsletter Editor: Beth Simmons
Our
chapter's roots go back to the early 1960s, when the Delaware County Audubon
Society was formed, with its headquarters in Muncie, Indiana. Much like
our chapter today, this local birding and nature club came together on
a regular basis for informative meetings, fields trips, and social events.
In 1974, Charles Wise, one of the club's founders, urged his fellow Auduboners to link their group to the National Audubon Society and expand its range to the six surrounding counties.
Thus, the East Central Indiana Audubon Society (ECIAS) was created to serve Blackford, Delaware, Grant, Henry, Jay, Madison, and Randolph Counties. Individuals in these counties who were already members of the National Audubon Society were given the opportunity to join this new regional chapter. Many did join, and the growth continued. Within a very short time, the East Central Indiana Audubon Society had grown from a few dozen members to nearly 500 members, thanks to two ambitious membership drives.
In those early days, the chapter met on Ball State's campus in the Robert H. Cooper Science building, which had been named in honor of Dr. Cooper, a biology professor and one of the group's original board members. In the following years, the location for monthly meetings moved to another building at Ball State, then to the Muncie Eye Center, and finally to its present location, the Minnetrista Cultural Center.
Then, as now, the chapter took half a dozen or more field trips each year to favorite birding spots around Indiana and western Ohio, and since 1983 the chapter has hosted an annual banquet, at which 90 individuals and organizations have been honored for their contributions to the environment.
In 2003 the chapter was officially renamed the Robert Cooper Audubon Society (RCAS), to honor Dr. Cooper for his years of leadership in our own organization and in the Indiana Audubon Society.
Through the years, the ECIAS/RCAS has undertaken its share of environmental causes: fighting to prevent development of Christy Woods, an 18-acre wooded retreat on the Ball State campus; raising thousands of dollars to preserve land in Costa Rica, the winter home to many of the neotropical songbirds that breed in Indiana; circulating a petition to protest rechanneling of a local creek; writing letters to local newspaper editors, state legislators, and the Indiana governor to speak out on various issues; and many other causes. We have also assisted local and regional environmental organizations, such as the Wildlife Resqu Haus. In 2003 we purchased a 3-acre fen and donated it to the Red-tail Conservancy, as part of its Red-tail Nature Preserve, in Delaware County. Most recently we have focused on wetlands development in our seven-county region, erecting osprey nesting platforms, and hosting the Living Lightly Fair.
From
1974-2008, eleven individuals have served as President: Charles Wise (who
served full or partial terms four times), Thad Godish (three terms), Betty
Guemple (partial term), Phyllis Yuhas, Pam Popovich, Lois Rockhill, Janet
Tuhey, Barb Stedman (two terms), Mike Lannoo (partial term), Robin Dungan
(partial term), and Bonnie Nicholson.
Despite some changes and the passing of the years, however, the legacy of the Robert Cooper Audubon Society has remained the same. We continue working to conserve our natural resources and to enjoy the beauty of nature and the pleasure of birding with one another. We have done our best to remain true to the commitment and vision of Charles Wise and the many others who made the East Central Indiana Audubon Society a reality in 1974 and the many hundreds of individuals who have been faithful members for more than three decades.
