Bi-weekly Email Updates
Bi-weekly Email for March 3
Hello, VMNs. It’s that fun time of year in Virginia: Oh, look! It’s warm and glorious and the birds are singing! Oh, wait, it’s cold and wet and kind of gross. The good news? That means spring is right around the corner! When you’re waiting for those warm days, you can catch up on the Bi-weekly emails.
This email includes:
- 2026 VMN Conference – updates
- VMN Evaluation Survey – watch for an email!
- Continuing Education Opportunities
- Advertising a new position in Extension – pass the word
2026 Conference updates
The 2026 VMN Statewide Conference will be September 18-20, 2026 at the Westin Washington Dulles Airport hotel in Herndon, VA. Be sure you’ve marked your calendars! Our program committee is working hard to put together great sessions and the Fairfax and Banshee Reeks chapters are excited to host their fellow VMNs and show them around!
VMN Evaluation – Watch for an Email from Qualtrics
On March 10, you will receive an email from Qualtrics with the subject line ‘Share your experience as a Virginia Master Naturalist.’ This is a legitimate, annual survey related to our program and is a collaborative project between VMN Program Director Michelle Prysby and Dr. Roshan Nayak, Extension Specialist and professor of Agricultural, Leadership, and Community Education. We strongly encourage you to participate. Your feedback will help us improve our efforts and better support our volunteers. If you do participate, you may record up to one hour of volunteer service in the category of Chapter Administration.
Continuing Education Opportunities
Virginia Native Plant Society Annual Workshop – The Wild World of Virginia’s Wetlands
Dates: March 18 and March 25, 2026. Meet-and-greet at 6:30, sessions at 7:00 and 8:00 both evenings.
Location: Zoom
Registration and Details: For the lineup of presenters and registration information, please see https://vnps.org/events/vnps-annual-workshop-2026-via-zoom/.
Reminder: VMN CE Webinar: The Virginia Wildlife Action Plan: A Plan for the Next 10 years
Date: Wednesday, March 11, 12:00 – 1:00 pm
Description: The Virginia Wildlife Action Plan is now on its third iteration. This time the plan includes new taxa and has some new chapters to describe new situations and habitats. For the first time a significant portion of the Plan is presented as an online tool and is more interactive. In addition, there have been several success stories to tell from the last Plan in 2015.
Presenter: Jeff Trollinger, Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources. Jeff has worked for the DWR for 38 years. He managed the Watchable Wildlife Program for 10 years and led the team that developed the Virginia Birding and Wildlife Trail. He was the Wildlife Action Plan Coordinator from 2022 until recently. He currently resides in Nelson County with his husband and four furry children.
Registration: Pre-registration required
Recording: As always, the VMN CE Webinar will be recorded and posted to our website.
Advertising a new position – Natural Resources Youth Education Extension Specialist
We are excited that Virginia Cooperative Extension and the Virginia Tech Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation (where the VMN program is based) are hiring a new Natural Resources Youth Education Extension Specialist! This position also is a partnership with the Virginia Forestry Education Foundation. We expect many great collaborations with this person…but first they have to be hired. We’re including this notice here in case you or someone you know would be a good fit. See the link for full details, and please note that the application review date will be March 31, not March 12 (it is in the process of being updated.) Share with your networks!
Bi-weekly Email for February 17
Hello, VMNs. We’ve got an exciting week as Giving Day starts tomorrow! Between your volunteer gig and checking our progress on the VT Giving Day Leaderboard (VMN is always near the top because we have awesome participation!), you can catch up on the Bi-weekly emails.
This email includes:
- Giving Day Starts Tomorrow!
- Winter edition of the VMN newsletter
- Being a VMN – Tracking your Volunteer Service
- Continuing Education Opportunities
- Other Opportunities
Giving Day Starts Tomorrow!
This is a 24-hour philanthropic celebration and a chance for everyone to show their support for the Virginia Master Naturalist program and other programs at Virginia Tech. All the details you need are right here:
- To participate and support VMN, use this link to make a gift from 12:00 pm on Wednesday, February 18 to 12:00 pm on Thursday, February 19.
- The link should pre-populate the choice of organizations so that your gift will be directed to the VMN program.
- We need at least 500 donors to unlock the special challenge gift of $20,000 from one of our members!
- Giving Day is about participation, not the amount of money you can give, so any gift of $5 or more counts toward our goal. It would be great to see us smash it! Plus, we are eligible for several other challenges based on the number of donors.
- You also can help by getting your friends, family, and volunteer pals to give, too.
- Michelle will be sending a few email updates throughout the 24-hour period.
- Your gifts contribute to initiatives like mini-grants for chapters, volunteer recognition items, our state conference, and the great day-to-day work that our staff do to support the program, chapters, and volunteers across Virginia.
The link you need (will be active starting at noon on Wednesday): https://givingday.vt.edu/amb/vmn
Winter Edition of the VMN Newsletter – In Case You Missed It
The winter edition of our quarterly newsletter, The Pollinator, should have arrived in your inbox on February 9. All the main articles are posted on our blog, so you can check them out at https://www.virginiamasternaturalist.org/blog/.
Being a VMN Volunteer: Tracking Your Volunteer Service
This is Part 1 of a multi-part series in our bi-weekly email focusing on keeping track of what you do as a volunteer in Better Impact. Even if you are a seasoned VMN volunteer, you might discover that you haven’t been tracking something quite right, so please take a look!
Part 1: Why, Where, and When to Track
Why? Recording your service and CE activities is a required part of being a VMN volunteer. It’s part of the volunteer code of conduct. More than that, your tracking provides critical data that allows us to understand the impacts of the program, continually evaluate what we do, and provide our sponsoring agencies with information they need about your activities. Plus, we use the data for volunteer recognition at the chapter and state levels. Lastly, accurately tracking what you are doing is important for risk management by documenting when you were acting in your volunteer role.
Where? Better Impact is our online volunteer management system. We use it for purposes beyond just hours tracking, including for volunteer applications and for documenting details about service opportunities. You can access the volunteer portal (myimpactpage.com) from a web browser on any computer or you can use the mobile app (called My Impact.)
When?
- Best: Right after you complete the service or CE, while it is fresh in your mind!
- Still great: Within a week or two. Maybe make a habit of doing it at the same time every week?
- Okay…we can work with this: Within one month. Perhaps set a reminder to get this done on the last day of the month every month?
- Acceptable in some limited cases: Quarterly. This works for hours that you are grouping together that (1) were on the same activity and (2) don’t have a lot of other important details about location or exactly what you were doing. For example, a volunteer on the chapter’s board might group together all their hours for board meetings and communications and report them quarterly.
- Not acceptable: Entering all of your hours at the end of the year. We have many other reports due at different times of the year, so we are missing a lot of information when you’ve been volunteering all year but have not tracked what you are doing in Better Impact.
- Very problematic: Entering all of your hours for the previous year after January 15 of the next year. We had more than 800 hours entries (nearly 3,000 hours) entered after January 15, 2026 for hours that were completed in 2025. Chapter boards had to complete their annual reports by January 15, and the VMN program director had to generate statewide reports soon after that. That means that none of those 3,000 hours were included in our reports to our sponsoring agencies. It also means that most of these hours were not included when we ran reports in early-January to determine who completed the requirements for Certification and earned milestone recognitions. This makes us sad. 😥
The good news is that, across more than 125,000 hours entries in 2025, on average hours are entered about one month after the service, and half of the entries were within three days! Most volunteers are doing a great job on this, and we are so appreciative!
To sum up, make a habit of tracking your VMN service on MyImpactPage.com or in the MyImpact mobile app soon after you do it, because it is important for the VMN program, for risk management, and for recognizing your amazing accomplishments!
In the next bi-weekly, we’ll delve into the “how” of documenting your service in a way that is easy for you and most useful for your chapter and the VMN state office!
Continuing Education Opportunities
VMN CE Webinar: The Virginia Wildlife Action Plan: A Plan for the Next 10 years
Date: Wednesday, March 11, 12:00 – 1:00 pm
Description: The Virginia Wildlife Action Plan is now on its third iteration. This time the plan includes new taxa and has some new chapters to describe new situations and habitats. For the first time a significant portion of the Plan is presented as an online tool and is more interactive. In addition, there have been several success stories to tell from the last Plan in 2015.
Presenter: Jeff Trollinger, Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources. Jeff has worked for the DWR for 38 years. He managed the Watchable Wildlife Program for 10 years and led the team that developed the Virginia Birding and Wildlife Trail. He was the Wildlife Action Plan Coordinator from 2022 until recently. He currently resides in Nelson County with his husband and four furry children.
Registration: Pre-registration required
Recording: As always, the VMN CE Webinar will be recorded and posted to our website.
Spring Vernal Pools Institute
Date: March 16-18, 2026
Location: Western Highlands area of Virginia (contact the organizer for specific location information)
Description: Come explore the ecology & conservation of vernal pools & related wetlands in the Western Highlands region of VA. Guided & instructed by Mike Hayslett of Virginia Vernal Pools, LLC.
Registration: $300
For more information: https://www.virginiavernalpools.com/springpoolsinstitute
Questions? Please contact VAvernalpools@gmail.com.
Other Opportunities
Outreach Grants from the Virginia Society of Ornithology (VSO)
The VSO is again offering Outreach Grants for 2026. These grants, up to $1,000 each, aim at engaging historically under-served groups in birding activities, including, but not limited to Minorities, Tribes, LGBTQ, and Disability groups. The ultimate goals are to increase access to the joy of connecting with nature through birds, and to bring all voices together for nature conservation that benefits all. Guidelines for application and information about previous grants are available at the Outreach Grant section at https://www.virginiabirds.org/scholarships-grants.
Deadline: September 1, 2026
Connect with Us
For general inquiries about the Virginia Master Naturalist program, please contact:
masternaturalist@vt.edu540-231-0790