President's Corner
FCAS needs volunteers
by John Shenot
As I near the end of my second term as president, I’m happy to report that I haven’t ruined the organization. All kidding aside, I recently compared the most recent report from our treasurer to the report from January 2015, when I first took office, and found that our bank balance has changed by less than one percent. We haven’t grown, as I would have liked, but your elected Board of Directors has managed to keep our finances stable without raising membership dues. In fact, FCAS has not raised membership dues since 2010.
In next month’s newsletter I will present our budget for 2019, but here’s a sneak preview: we will start the year with known expenses that exceed the revenues we collect from membership dues. This happens every year. But instead of raising dues, we try each year to have one major fundraiser that fills the gap. We’ve had great success in the past two years with a birdathon (2016) and a silent auction (2017) that exceeded our goals, but we’ve also learned that those kinds of fundraisers are more effective if we don’t repeat them every year. So, for 2018, we’ll be trying a more direct approach.
Before the end of the year, FCAS will mail a letter to
our members asking for donations to supplement
membership dues. We’ve never done this before, but
you all know that many other non-profits do this annually
or even more frequently. Our needs are modest: a
donation of $50 could pay our registration fees for having
an FCAS table at an upcoming nature festival,
$100 could cover most of our costs for one issue of the
Ptarmigan, or $250 could pay for one of our monthly
meetings. We’re also trying to build up funds in the
Alex Cringan Fund, so we can offer natural history
education grants to local teachers and students. I hope our letter will get your attention and that you will consider giving. Thanks!
Find FCAS on Facebook for Field Trip Information
FCAS has a Facebook page where we post announcements about upcoming field trips, last minute changes to scheduled trips, and high-lights of most of our outings. Just click on the “Like" button in the plugin to Like our page! Our announcements should then appear on your wall. You can also click on "Fort Collins Audubon Society" to be taken directly to the Facebook page. Note: All field trips are also announced in the Ptarmigan and on our website.