Bi-weekly Email Updates

Bi-weekly Email for December 9

Hello, VMNs. Happy Holidays! We’ve got a lot for you today because this is our final Bi-weekly email of the year. We hope you enjoy your holidays in whatever wonderful or whacky forms they take. In the midst of the hub-bub, give yourself a quiet moment and catch up on the Bi-weekly emails.

This email includes:

1. VMN State Office will be closed for VT Winter Break
2. Annual Re-enrollment is open
3. Supporting VMN in your Year-end Giving
4. Continuing Education Opportunities
5. Volunteer Service Opportunities
6. Being a VMN – year-end info

State Office closed for VT Winter Break, December 20, 2025 – January 4, 2026

The Virginia Master Naturalist State Office will be closed in conjunction with the Virginia Tech Winter Break, December 20, 2025 – January 4, 2026. We look forward to returning emails and answering questions when we are back in the office in the new year. 

Annual Re-enrollment is Open

The VMN annual Re-enrollment Period is open. All VMNs should have received an email on December 1 explaining what they needed to do, if anything. Reminder emails will continue to be sent during this period. If you complete the Re-enrollment questions while the VMN Staff is away for Winter Break, your badge will not be updated until January 5 as that must be done manually.

Supporting VMN in Your Year-end Giving

Our program benefits from financial gifts, both large and small, from volunteers and others who want to support what we do. We thank the hundreds of individuals and chapters who have contributed to the Virginia Tech Foundation this year in support of the VMN program! Gifts of all amounts have helped us provide mini-grants for chapters, volunteer recognition items, needed program staffing, and more. If you want to incorporate the VMN program into your year-end giving plans, please see the directions at https://www.virginiamasternaturalist.org/give/ and this information from the Virginia Tech Foundation about year-end giving logistics.

Also, mark your calendar now for Giving Day 2026, which will take place from noon on February 18 until noon on February 19. Giving Day is a celebration of philanthropy at Virginia Tech (including the Virginia Master Naturalist program), and it has been a great way to promote Virginia Master Naturalists in past years. More details to come in January! 

Continuing Education Opportunities

Living with Eastern Coyotes Training Opportunity
Date: Saturday, January 24^th, 10:15-11:45 am
Location: Maymont, 1000 Westover Road, Richmond, VA 23220. Free parking in the farm lot — 1001 Spottswood Road.
Description: Hello fellow VMN! Maymont is working with DWR Furbearer Biologist, Leah Card, to develop a new presentation about coyotes. In a similar format as “Living with Black Bears”, “Living with Eastern Coyotes” will educate audiences about coyote natural history, their presence in Virginia, their behaviors and habits, and how to prevent negative interactions and dispel unfounded fears. All VMN across the state are invited to attend the in-person training, which will include a Question & Answer session. Following the training, you will receive access to the presentation for you to provide presentations on coyotes in your community. If you are not able to attend this initial training, other trainings are being scheduled. Due to limited space, this training is only for VMN volunteers.
Please use this link to register: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0A4FABAC2DA7F5C43-60903802-vmntraining.
Questions: Please contact Krista Weatherford if you have any questions about this training session, kweatherford@maymont.org. 

Volunteer Opportunities

Open Enrollment Period for the VMN Educators Bureau

Each year in June and December, we open the opportunity for additional volunteers to sign up for our VMN Educators Bureau. If you are willing and able to teach others, please read on and sign up!

The VMN Educators Bureau is an up-to-date listing of VMN volunteers willing to teach other VMNs, give presentations for community groups, lead nature walks, lead environmental education activities for youth, or do any other form of education related to natural resources. Our goal is to increase VMN engagement in Education & Outreach, help our program reach new audiences, and help us respond better to requests for presenters. 

Want to join the Educators Bureau for the first time? If you are a VMN interested and willing to teach others and lead educational programs of any kind on natural resource topics and if you are not already signed up, we invite you to complete our Educators Bureau form between now and January 5. By completing the form, you aren’t committing to any specific opportunity at this point but simply indicating your willingness to be contacted if an opportunity arises that fits your particular profile. On the form, we provide more details on how your information will be used and how you can update your information later. 

URL for form for NEW signups: https://forms.gle/TaoMGL8FC9CwMDx76  

Already signed up for the Educators Bureau? VMN volunteers who signed up for the Educators Bureau in the past should not use the link for new people, as that will result in duplicate listings. If you are already in the database, you instead should have received an email earlier today with a personalized link to view and edit your own existing listing. If you did not receive the email, first check your Spam/Junk folder. If it isn’t there, you can contact masternaturalist@vt.edu to get the information and individualized link that you need.

Kudos to all our Educators Bureau members, new and seasoned! We have been able to fill a wide diversity of presenter requests, thanks to you! Our next ‘open enrollment period’ for the Educators Bureau will be in June.

DWR Bird and Wildlife Trail Birdability Project Update

Winter is a great time to make progress on documenting the accessibility of all the trails at the Virginia Bird and Wildlife Trail sites! As of late November, 83 sites are complete, 52 sites are claimed (with 26 of those more than 90 days overdue), and 360 sites are available. If you have claimed a site, please be sure to complete your review. Let’s see if VMNs can claim and complete all the remaining sites! 

Not sure what this is all about? See the Birdability section of the Virginia Bird and Wildlife Trail projects on our website. This is a project than any VMN can do, once you have watched/read the training info! Check with your chapter’s service chair to make sure it is approved and to report your time correctly.

2026 Volunteer Service Theme: Water

Several chapters mentioned that they liked having a volunteer service theme (trees and forests) this year, so we’re trying this concept again in 2026! The 2026 theme will focus on water. We will have a list of sample service activities, a catchy hashtag label to use when reporting your water-related service, and additional information ready in January. While participation is voluntary, we hope that many of you will do some service related to our theme next year. For now, you still have a few weeks to get in your #Treemendous20th service related to trees/forests!

Being a VMN – Year-end Info

Your “Certified” badge in Better Impact will disappear as of January 1

This doesn’t mean that you’re not certified for 2026! It just means that the qualification is set to expire at the end of the year and that it takes us about a month to verify Recertifications and get the badges back up. “Certified” badges should be showing up in Better Impact for everyone who qualifies by the end of January.

Volunteer transfers suspended for the month of January

January starts the report season in the VMN State Office. Three reports for each of 30 chapters means there is a lot to do! End-of-year reports tell us who earned Recert pins, initial certifications, and new milestones. We have found it works best if volunteers are not changing chapters during this time so transfers are suspended for the month of January. Chapters and volunteers can inform us of transfer plans during this time and we will be happy to add them to our to-do list for February!

Calculating your total volunteer service hours in BI

We get questions about this every year so we wanted to share information about what you see in your Better Impact dashboard and how to calculate your lifetime volunteer service hours total in case you’re trying to reach a specific milestone by the end of the year.

The most important thing to know when looking at the hours total displayed on your dashboard is that this total includes Continuing Education (CE) hours as well as your volunteer service hours. This is a quirk of Better Impact that we do not have any control over. 

Two additional notes here: 1) If you’re in more than one VCE master volunteer program, then the total hours displayed on your dashboard in Better Impact includes ALL of the hours you’ve logged for all of those organizations; and 2) For those of you who have “VMN historic hours” that were imported from our previous online system, those do not include any CE hours. We only imported volunteer service hours

This means that you will have to do a little math to calculate your total lifetime volunteer hours – the hours that VMN milestones are based on. We have provided those instructions here:

Quick report to calculate lifetime volunteer service hours in BI

1. Login to MyImpact
2. Click on the Reports tab
3. Scroll down to Hours and Feedback Report
4. In the Date Range field, change the start date to 1/1/2020 (all importing of hours from the old system happened after this date) and leave the end date as today’s date
5. Click View Report
6. Scroll down to view the report
7. For anyone in more than one VCE master volunteer program, look for the report that says “Organization: Your VMN Chapter” and use that report only. Everyone else, you will only see one report.
8. Find where it says “Total Hours” in your report and note that number down. 
9. In the same report, find your chapter’s category where you track Continuing Education
10. Find where it says “Category Total Hours” under your chapter’s Continuing Education category and note that number down.
11. Complete this equation: Total Hours – Category Total Hours for CE = Total Lifetime Volunteer Service Hours

Bi-weekly Email for November 25

Hello, VMNs. Happy Thanksgiving! If this is a holiday you celebrate, we hope you enjoy the day! And while you’re eating all of those leftovers, take some time to catch up on the Bi-weekly emails.

This email includes:

1. VMN State Office closed for Thanksgiving holiday
2. Annual Re-enrollment opens December 1
3. Volunteer transfers suspended for month of January
4. Spanish for Naturalists Publication Available
5. Restore the Wild Artwork Competition
6. Virginia Gray Fox Project
7. VMN Award Nominations – submit by December 8

VMN State Office will be closed November 26-30

The Virginia Master Naturalist State Office will be closed in conjunction with the Virginia Tech Thanksgiving Break, November 26-30, 2025. We look forward to returning emails and answering questions when we are back in the office on December 1. 

Annual Re-enrollment Period Opens December 1

All VMNs will receive an email on December 1 with instructions about annual Re-enrollment. Please look for that message!

Volunteer transfers suspended for the month of January

January starts the report season in the VMN State Office. Three reports for each of 30 chapters means there is a lot to do! End-of-year reports tell us who earned Recert pins, initial certifications, and new milestones. We have found it works best if volunteers are not changing chapters during this time so transfers are suspended for the month of January. Chapters and volunteers can inform us of transfer plans during this time and we will be happy to add them to our to-do list for February!

Spanish for Naturalists Publication Available

We’re excited to share that our Spanish for Naturalists publication is now available through Virginia Cooperative Extension (in both HTML format and PDF download.) Thank you to the volunteers who contributed and to Ernesto Garcia-Ortega with Texas Parks and Wildlife and the Texas Master Naturalist Program, whose publication served as the draft for ours.

Restore the Wild Artwork Competition

The Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources is running their annual Restore the Wild artwork competition. This year’s subject focus is the Rafinesque’s big-eared bat. See the DWR site for contest details. 

Virginia Gray Fox Project

The Virginia Gray Fox camera trapping study, a collaboration between DWR and Virginia Tech researchers, has been sharing some great trail cam footage and interesting research results lately, as well as promoting the project to people in eastern Virginia (the focus area for 2026 surveys) and letting folks know about their current crowdfunding campaign. To date in this study, no gray foxes have been documented north of the I-64 corridor. 2026 will be the final year of the survey.

Learn more from this news article, their Facebook page, and their crowdfunding page. 

Award Nominations – Submit by December 8

Please send nominations for our 2025 VMN Program Awards! These awards are one of the ways we recognize and bring attention to the impactful work you are doing, and we would love to see plenty of nominations in every category. 

• Chapter Leader of the Year
• Volunteer of the Year
• New VMN Volunteer
• Chapter Advisor of the Year
• Most Impactful Project
• Nature for All Award
• Best Tabling/Outreach Display (new category this year!)

These awards will be judged by the VMN statewide office team and one or more VMN sponsoring agency representatives. We will announce the winners around the end of January. To submit a nomination, please send the information requested for that particular award to Michelle Prysby. Nominations are due by December 8 at 5:00 pm, but if you have a nomination in progress and need another couple of days, let Michelle know. You can find this year’s award nomination information on our website. You also can learn about our 2024 award winners!

mination information on our website. You also can learn about our 2024 award winners!