End of year message for 2021
Learn the birds has finished up its webinar and Bird-is-the-Word schedule for this year. For those of us in the Southern Hemisphere, mid December to early January is our summer holiday time aside from all the other end of year and religious holidays that happen at the same time. We wish you all the best for this holiday and festive season, and we look forward to seeing you all next year as we put together another exciting program of free webinars.
I (Derek) will be spending a lot of time on he holiday season birding, as it corresponds to the peak of the breeding season and the time when the Northern Hemisphere and intra-African migrants are with us. I will post a few photos and observations to the Learn-the-Birds blog, and encourage my colleagues to do the same. If anyone would like to post to our blog section, please contact derek@learnthebirds.com or whatsapp me on +27 82 787 0169.
Here are some things you can still do on Learn-the-Birds during the holiday season:
Visit our YouTube channel and review some past webinars
(https://www.youtube.com/c/LearntheBirds/videos);Read some of our blog posts (magazine article style)
(https://learnthebirds.com/latest-posts/);Leave us ideas for 2022, for speakers, content, ways of engagement, etc.
(https://learnthebirds.com/contact/);Contribute some content of your own, get in touch with Derek to make arrangements;
Spread the word, we will be back!
Some changes will also happen on Learn-the-Birds during our time away. These include:
We have new team members: in addition to Derek Keats, Etienne Marais and Faraaz Abdool, Christa Rolls and Lynette Rudman have joined the team for 2022. Both Christa and Lynette have done webinars on LTB and may already be familiar to you, but we will introduce them further during the new year. We are also finalising arrangements for someone to join us and represent LTB in Asia.
For LTB to reach as many people as possible it has to become financially sustainable. To that end we will be introducing some affordable but paid content, including online courses, more masterclasses, and members areas with additional content. We will also seek sponsorship, and we welcome other ideas for sustainability from you, our community.
The webinar program will start again in January (date not yet finalised). There will be one committed webinar per month on the third Thursday of the month, with additional ad hoc webinars from time to time.
March will be reserved for Women in Birding and Ornithology again, and just as we did last year, each Thursday of the month will have a woman speaker. We believe this is important, and something that we would like to continue. We welcome your ideas.
When we come back in January, we would like to develop the social aspects of LTB and the LTB site where you the members can contribute, ask questions, etc. There will be more on this when we kick off the membership project in February.
If you have ideas for speakers, course presenters, blog writers who might like to contribute to LTB, please let us know. You can email Derek, use the contact form, or use my whatsapp number +27 82 787 0169.
What else would you like to see on LTB? Please let us know.
We hereby thank everyone who contributed to LTB during the year, whether that be by telling a friend, suggesting an improvement, making a financial contribution, or attending one or more of our webinars or masterclasses. Your contribution is appreciated.
Lastly, LTB is here because of you, and we hope to be able to continue serving you in 2022 with more webinars and other content. See you in January! May the new year bring you joy when it arrives.
Lynette, Christa, Etienne, Faraaz, and Derek