HNC Volunteers of the Year 2000: Norm Ralston, Jean Stollard & Mike Street

Norm Ralston, Jean Stollard and Mike Street, HNC Volunteers of the Year for 2000

Norm Ralston

The inaugural recipient was Norm Ralston, who has been a member of the Club since the mid-seventies. In addition to serving on the Board of Directors, and being Club President in the early eighties, Norm has been the Mailing Coordinator and along with his mailing committee they have been responsible for making sure we all get the Wood Duck since 1984.

This is no easy feat considering we currently mail out the Wood Duck to 500 people and organizations each month, and in order to receive a discounted postal rate the envelopes have to be sorted according to postal code!

Jean Stollard

The second recipient this year was Jean Stollard. Her volunteering for the Naturalists' Club goes back to the 1970's when she first moved to Burlington, became a Club member and was part of the Wood Duck mailing committee.

In the 1990's she volunteered for 5 years as Wood Duck editor. She then served at Club President from 1997 - 1998, and assisted with the organizing of the 80th anniversary fundraising dinner for the Club.

More recently Jean has been one of the Plant Study Group coordinators and additionally has been involved in the creation of a permanent display case for HNC memorabilia to be housed at the Hamilton Region Conservation Authority headquarters building.

Mike Street

The third recipient of the Hamilton Naturalists' Club Volunteer of the Year award was Mike Street. Mike became a Club member in 1988, and wasted no time before volunteering and becoming a valued part of the Club.

From 1989 to 2001, Mike on a weekly basis, recorded and monitored the Hamilton Birding Hotline, updating the phone message if a rare bird arrives in the Hamilton area. In 1995, he also created the Club's first Internet web site and regularly updated the files there until 2001.

As a Club hike leader, Mike has led numerous trips to observe hawks and owls in the Hagersville area. For the last number of years Mike has also been an important part of the Club's FalconWatch program, with the past year seeing him take an active role in the installation and monitoring of a camera used to monitor the Peregrine Falcon nest with the subsequent images available on the Club's web site.