Tag: opryd

Rotary Nature Center Update – June 1

From today’s update from OPRY&D tomorrow Saturday, June 2nd, we will hear five proposals for programs at the Rotary Nature Center.

June 2nd

9:00am – noon:30

Lakeside Park Garden Center

666 Bellevuey Ave

For each proposal, there will be about 10 minutes for a high level summary and 10 minutes for community questions and support. The five presentations will be the following:

  1.  Birds Are Natural Ambassadors for Nature, Science,  Art, & Community –Cindy Margulis
  2. Bar Code the Lake – Damon Tighe
  3. Learning to Know Nature Through the Senses – Jennifer Jastrab
  4. S.T.E.M. Projects for Youth at the Rotary Nature Center – Katie Noonan
  5. Taking Wing  –  Donald Cooper

Next meeting, Sat, Apr 7, 2018: 9am-noon

My App Timehop noted a sad anniversary today: that of the closing of the Rotary Nature Center last year.

We’re finally coming to some concrete steps moving forward to a new and reinvigorated Center.

Todays’s update form Karis Griffin of OPRYD, brought to light her committee to govern and guide this effort, a fine crew of Lake Merritt stalwarts: C.J. Hirschfield (E.D. of Fairyland and involved with Rotary Club and many other things), Jennie Gerard (a veteran of city hall, and founder of Weed Warriors, and Lake Merritt Advocates), James Robinson (E.D. of Lake Merritt Institute), and the aforementioned Alan Briskin (the facilitator hired by the city).

The next public meeting is set for Saturday, April 7th, 2018 from 9am to noon. This meeting will be held at Studio One, 365 45th Street, in the Temescal neighborhood of Oakland.

If you plan to attend, please RSVP to parksandrec@oaklandnet.com

The committee went together this past Thursday to the Berkeley Shorebird Park Nature Center, to visit a potential model for our Nature Center (well worth a visit if you have not been — they have a pretty amazing docent program too).

The agenda for this meeting is

Facilitator being engaged

The past couple weeks, the Oakland Parks, Recreation, and Youth Development Department (OPRYD) has been working to hire and contract with a facilitator to lead the process for the renewed Rotary Nature Center. An individual has been selected.
I don’t have the name of the individual on hand. Today’s update from OPYRD said: “little to report this week… still in the process of finalizing our contract with a facilitator.” They are also (in conjunction with some of our allies) “planning to visit a few nature sites in the area.”
 
This was a suggestion that came out of a meeting organized this past week at the Lake Chalet. The meeting was an ad hoc one meant to keep people talking and thinking on our hopes and dreams for the center. We were happy to have a couple representatives from the city attend, from OPRYD and Councilmember MacElhaney’s office.
Here’s the full update if you care to read:

A Center Piece of Lake Merritt

A follow up from the Jan 24th meeting, Karis Griffin from Oakland Parks, Recreation, and Youth Development details how they are currently moving forward. They are selecting someone to facilitate the process with a goal “to create a new Rotary Nature Center that is the center piece of Lake Merritt, the nature-oriented learning institution it was destined to be.”

Met and Greeted

January 24th, 2018, some 60+ people came out to the Lake Merritt Sailboat House on very rainy night to talk about the Rotary Nature Center and what it might become at an Oakland Parks, Recreation, and Youth Development (OPRYD) “Meet & Greet”.

OPRYD was represented by Nicholas Williams, Karis Griffin (along with others like Dianne Boyd, and some the remaining  staff of the Center, Leanne and Michelle) . The  audience represented a wide swath of neighbors and organizations working around the lake: eg The Rotary Club, The Lake Merritt Breakfast Club, Measure DD Committee, Lake Merritt Institute, Oakland Museum of California, our group, (Community for Lake Merritt), Alameda Beekeepers, Golden Gate Audubon, Oakland Beautification Council, Insect Sciences Museum of California, California Center for Natural History, and more There were scientists, illustrators, naturalists, interested neighbors, and a kid who got her momto come.

We’d been gathering our allies through our petition, social posts, and emails, to allied groups. C.J. Hirschfield of the Rotary Club, and Jennie Gerard of Weed Warriors and Lake Merritt Advocates in particular deserve much thanks for their efforts). A huge shoutout to our board member Katie Noonan for her efforts to get people interested and involved.

The meeting itself was simple, Nicholas and Karis opened and answered some questions about the closure and the base level plans. Jeri Martinez from Alameda Beekeepers talked about the state of the beehive from the Center  which currently resides in Jeri’s backyard, waiting for the right time to return to their queendom at the Center. Cindy Margulis from Golden Gate Audubon gave an update on the heron colony and plans to attract them back to the lake. She also gave an impassioned coda as to why the Center is so important.

From there we talked a little about the process… next step for the larger community, a meeting Saturday March 17th, 2018 for people to propose projects for the Rotary Nature Center. In between that time, the city will be hiring a facilitator and creating a committee to come up with a strategic framework.

Nicholas said he want-s to honor the original vision of the Center, to protect the tradition with a 2018 spin. When pressed he assured the crowd that it will always be a Nature Center

OPRYD seems interested in taking guidance from the community in planning the future of the Center. We hope we will see continued communication from staff on how things are progressing

So…

  • There’s a lot of work to do.
  • Lots of challenges remain.
  • We have a community and staff who are ready and willing to be engaged.
  • Stay tuned for more about the March 17th meeting and how to keep involved!
  • Sign up to stay in touch!