A fun time was had by all at the annual Master Naturalist Christmas Party. As usual there was plenty of good food and fellowship. Everyone pitched in to make this a great party. Those in attendance included: Lynn Allen, Clara Bryant, Cris & Chris Bell, George & JoAnn Goodner, Jean & Jerry Henderson, Beth Landon & friend Lois Kruschutz, Bob Lastowski, Chuck & Carolyn Lilly, Donna Mackiewicz, Marie & Earl Miller & grandkids Leah, Luke & Logan, Debbie Robertson, Christina Stallings Roberson, Melinda & Keith West, Kristy, Lou & Ben Wicker, Bonnie & Keith Winchester.

After partaking of the feast service pin awards were made. Bob Lastowski received his 100 hour certificate. Those receiving bronze pins (250 hours) were Lynn Allen, George & JoAnn Goodner. Silver pins (500 hours) were awarded to Cris Bell, Jean & Jerry Henderson, Christina Stallings Roberson, Kristy Wicker, Bonnie Winchester & Melinda West. We even had two gold pin (1000 hours) recipients: Beth Landon & Donna Mackiewicz. For the year 2009 13 active members completed 1,649 volunteer hours and 355 advanced training hours. Out total volunteer hours since we became a chapter total 17,346 and we have completed 7,771 advance trainings hours. “Way to go guys!”
Master Naturalist of the Year was awarded to Melinda West.

After everyone finished congratulating each other for all the hard work this year we drew names for door prizes. Everyone took home a little something for Christmas. Thanks to everyone who brought a door prize.

The main event of the evening & perennial favorite now commenced. With the glue guns all warmed up the wreath making began in earnest. I dare say our group has some of the best decorated habitats in the state. This year a new item was added – log suet feeders. Much thanks to all the guys who brought their drills. I’m sure our feathered friends enjoy our efforts as much as we enjoy making the feeders.

Our November meeting consisted of a lot of “housekeeping” chores & fun.

A new slate of officers was decided upon for next year. These are:

President Melinda West

Vice President Christina Stallings

Secretary Jean Henderson

Treasurer Donna Mackiewicz

Melinda West was named as Master Naturalist of the Year.

Ideas for programs and advanced trainings were discussed as were plans for our Christmas Party (12-11-09).

We then got down to the program for the month – “A tutorial of the Master Naturalist website.” Kristy Wicker led us through the new website that was developed for us by MerchantMetrix. This was very informative & generated a lot of discussion. I think we developed some really good ideas on how to improve the site even more. If you haven’t been to the website lately I would encourage you to give it a look.

Our final treat/challenge for the day was to make binocular straps. Jean & Jerry Henderson learned how to make these on a recent trip to Alaska. The strap lets you freely move the binoculars up to your eyes yet holds them snuggly against your chest when not in use. I’ve seen these advertised on TV for $40 on up. The ones we made cost an estimated $1.25 apiece! We all had fun making these & learned a lot about tying knots in the process.

Best of luck and safety to the VORTEX-2 team embarking today on their one month quest for tornado data!

“Verification of Rotation in Tornadoes 2″ or VORTEX 2, was explained to our OMN membership at our May meeting.

Lou Wicker presented the VORTEX-2 strategy  and explained how over the last decades, though tornado prediction has improved, we still do not fully understand how tornados are formed.

VORTEX-2 the largest-ever field program to study how tornadoes form and dissipate. VORTEX-2 is set to run from May 10 – June 15 of 2009 and 2010. VORTEX-2 is a NOAA/National Science Fundation (NSF) funded program.

A mobile armada of forty vehicles and portable Doppler radar will be deployed and respond in an area covering North Texas and the Southern High Plains all the way to South Dakota to study tornado genesis, near ground wind fields and relationships between storms.

Tornado warning lead time over the decades has improved.

1980’s – warning time was under 6 minutes, but was improved with employing doppler radar.

1990’s,  with the original VORTEX experiment findings, Doppler improvements and training, 7-8 minutes was achieved.

With the 2002-2003 large tornado outbreaks and resulting data,13 minutes warning was realized.

The goal of the VORTEX-2 program is to improve forecasting and push the warning lead time up to 15 minutes.

Best of luck in your efforts to help to protect those living in the areas of these dangerous and awesome weather phenomena.

Keep watching the skies and be safe out there!!

Thank YOU Merchant Metrix of Norman, OK for your fabulous and creative work and for donating your time to creating this new website for our organization.

You do wonderful website design.