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UPCOMING EVENTS!
Listed below are some events which may be of interest to you. Please mark your calendar and plan to attend!
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Saturday, October 22, Fall Color Walk. Meet at the COL office at 1:45 pm for a naturalist-led walk. (Note the afternoon time!) Please mark your calendar -- more info to come!
Our Second Annual Benefit was hugely fun! In case you missed it, you can check out photos from the event in our photo gallery here, select "Mingling at Middlebrook".
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Dear friends,
The beauty of the Fall season is now upon us -- and wasn't Summer fun? COL offered lots of educational walks and talks, some paddling activity in the marsh, bats, the beach and lots of activity in between! Please make sure you visit our photo gallery to see a visual accounting of what went on over the summer and check the website for updates on what's still to come.
Of course our main activity is always to preserve open space in our corner of Michigan. We are working hard to help local landowners protect their land and earn valuable federal tax benefits before they expire at the end of this year. If you have been thinking about adding an easement on your property, now is the time to contact COL to ask questions and gather the information you need to make a decision. The Land Trust Alliance's brochure on the tax benefits is very helpful -- download a pdf copy from our website.
As always, we thank you for your involvement with COL!
The Board and Staff of Chikaming Open Lands
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Mingling at Middlebrook, COL's Second Annual Benefit for Land Conservation, was here and is now gone. We thought you might want to see some of the stats from the event -- as well as learn who won the fantastic raffle prizes!
For all who attended and donated money, thank you so much! Your commitment to COL is very important to what we do. The biggest thanks goes out to the cows who gave up their home for the evening for our enjoyment (oh -- and the Schuttlers, too!). Visit our website for a full accounting of the event.
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 Land Protection and Stewardship News.... COL staff continue to work to preserve land in the area. We have a number of conservation projects in the pipeline at the moment and we look forward to sharing more information on them once completed.
October is the month when our Assistant Land Protection Specialist, Susan LaCroix, conducts monitoring on all of COL's conservation easements. Susan says, "It's important to conduct these yearly assessments because we want to make sure these properties are not being altered or that specific issues are being addressed. In addition to that, it's great to get out and touch base with everyone, and since I'm new to COL, I'll be meeting a lot of people for the first time." This activity is critical to a conservation organization such as COL. Preserving land "in perpetuity" means there must be periodic checks -- so look for Susan out in the field!
If you're curious about our easements, you'll find photos and descriptions for most of them on our website.
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If it's October, it must be the Land Trust Association's Rally! Each autumn, the LTA holds a conference for its 1700+ member conservancies across the country. Of these 1700 conservancies, COL is one of only 135 that is accredited through LTA. This year the event will be in Milwaukee, and several members of COL's board and staff will attend to meet our peers, learn about issues in conservation, and be inspired to continue our work. We'll have a report from Rally next month! |
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