Bi-weekly Email Updates

VMN Bi-Weekly Email to Volunteers for 16 September 2025

Hello, VMNs. Autumn is trying to grab a foothold and a few leaves are drifting down. According to an expert here at VT, our “Rainy summer could lead to spectacular fall foliage”. When you’re not watching the leaves change, be sure to catch up on the Bi-weekly emails.

This email includes:

1. 2025 VMN Statewide Conference Recap
2. 2026 VMN Statewide Conference – save the dates!
3. Continuing Education Opportunities
4. Volunteer Opportunities
5. Other News

2025 VMN Statewide Conference and Volunteer Training Recap

What happens when 182 VMN volunteers, 44 presenters, and 30+ conference volunteers come together in Richmond on a September weekend? A lot! Just a few session highlights included trapping live turtles in the hotel’s retention pond, seeing a managed elk herd, learning to collect and germinate native plant seeds, and learning what we can do about marine debris. The conference committee promoted fun James River-themed interactions through a photo booth, signature cocktail, Headwaters Down: Tidal River film screening and Q&A with the filmmaker, and a James River postcard coloring station. Here are a few preliminary evaluation results:

• 93% of attendees reported that their training and skills as a VMN volunteer improved.
• 90% reported that the program content addressed their individual learning needs.
• 98% of attendees agreed that they would recommend this event to others!

Thank you to all the participants, volunteers, instructors, sponsors, and donors who helped make the conference a success!

2026 VMN Statewide Conference and Volunteer Training – Save the Date!

If you missed out on this year’s conference, consider joining us next year! Mark your calendars for September 18-20, 2026. We will be in-person in northern Virginia at the Westin Washington Dulles Airport in Herndon, near the border between Fairfax and Loudoun counties.

Continuing Education Opportunities

EmpowerU Course Offering – October 10 – November 24, 2025

Have you been working on natural resource issues but feel compelled to do more? Taking part in the EmpowerU Training will move your natural resource work to the next level! In this 4-6 week course using an award-winning curriculum, participants can grow their skills to meaningfully engage decision makers about natural resource issues. Note that this training is not focused specifically on lobbying elected officials or getting legislation passed, but rather on engaging the right decision-maker for the change you hope to make.The course runs October 10-November 24 and includes eight self-paced online modules and three live Zoom sessions. Full details, including the registration link, are available at https://www.virginiamasternaturalist.org/continuing-education/empoweru/. The course is limited to 30 people, accepted on a first come-first served basis, and registration will close no later than October 9. Please only register if you can commit to completing the online coursework and attending the three Zoom sessions!

Salty Bird Festival with Holston Rivers Master Naturalists

This is a festival organized by the Holston Rivers Master Naturalists that takes place in the vicinity of Saltville, VA. This year’s event will be October 3-5 and will feature a presentation by Dr. Chris Marsh, an ecologist, naturalist, and environmental educator working in the Southeast. More information about specific activities, times, and locations is at https://vmnholstonrivers.com/salty-bird-festival/. 

State of Monarch Conservation

Join Monarch Joint Venture’s Executive Director, Wendy Caldwell, for a presentation on the State of Monarch Conservation — exploring current trends, challenges, and what we can do together to protect this iconic species. This is your chance to hear directly from MJV as a leader in monarch conservation, ask questions, and discover how your actions can make a real difference for monarchs and the landscapes they depend on.

Date: Thursday, October 16, 2025, at 7:00 PM CDT (8:00 PM EDT)

Location: Virtual Event (link will be emailed to registrants)

Format: 30-minute presentation + 30-minute Q&A session

Organizer: Monarch Joint Venture

Free; pre-registration required

See other courses coming up from Monarch Joint Venture.

Volunteer Opportunities

Seed Collection for the Virginia Department of Forestry

It is acorn collecting time! This year’s deadline for giving your acorns to DOF is October 15.  Please visit the DOF acorn collecting webpage for all the information, including information on how to correctly identify, collect, and store the acorns and when to deliver them to your area’s DOF office. This information is also contained in the activity template that Better Impact administrators can access and adopt, if they wish.  Volunteers should check with their chapter leaders to learn which activity to report acorn collecting to on Better Impact. BONUS – participating in the acorn collecting project counts for #Treemendous20th (see below), so long as you remember to put #Treemendous20th in the Description when you enter your hours!

Other News

#Treemendous20th Update

As part of our year-long VMN 20th anniversary celebration, we are asking all VMN volunteers to try to do at least one service activity related to trees or forests. When you do, include the text “#Treemendous20th” in the Description field when you enter your hours into Better Impact. See our website for details and activity ideas. So far, 144 VMN volunteers have contributed #Treemendous20th hours. Let’s get that number of volunteers up…we know more of you are doing tree-related activities!

Reminder: Virginia Association for Environmental Education Conference

The VAEE conference will take place February 26-28 in Richmond. Right now, VAEE is collecting submissions for presentations. Many of you are engaged in environmental education and would have great things to share, so please consider submitting a presentation proposal.

VMN Bi-Weekly Email to Volunteers for 2 September 2025

Hello, VMNs. Lots going on in VMN, including our annual conference this weekend. If you’re joining us, we’ll see you soon. If you’re doing your own thing, you can spend some time this weekend catching up on the Bi-weekly emails.

This email includes:

1. VMN State Office closed Sept 4-7
2. New VMN Website
3. New VMN Video
4. Send us your Urban and Community Forest Project Stories
5. 2026 Recert Pin Artwork – submit by September 15
6. Continuing Education Opportunities
7. Just for Fun

VMN State Office closed September 4-7, 2025

The VMN State Office staff will be away at the 2025 VMN Conference September 4-7. We will respond to your emails when we return to the office.

New VMN Website

We are excited to report that our new VMN website is finally up and running! You can still find it at virginiamasternaturalist.org, but links to specific pages and documents have changed. Try the search function (upper left corner) if you cannot locate something using the menus. FYI, we do know that the map of chapters is not currently working correctly; it should be fixed soon. Many thanks to our designers and developers at 28Media and to the excellent IT support personnel at Virginia Tech!

New VMN Video

We are equally excited to report that our new VMN video is also published! You can find it on the home page of our website or on the Virginia Tech video site. We also will be publishing it to our social media channels this week so that you can share it widely. In addition, we have four short reels that use additional footage that we’ll be releasing later this fall.

A HUGE thank you to the many VMN volunteers who contributed to these videos by sending in photos and video clips, serving as interviewers, agreeing to be interviewed on camera, and even auditioning and serving as the voiceover artists. We want to especially call out Ana Ka’ahanui (Fairfax), Tom Young (Eastern Shore), Monica Hoel (Holston Rivers), Lindsay Boswell (Middle Peninsula), Melanie La Force (Arlington Regional), and Kathryn Pasternak (Fairfax) for their extraordinary contributions. This was truly a successful crowdsourcing effort, completed in partnership with MiniMatters Video + Marketing.

Send Us Your Urban and Community Forestry Project Stories

We are working on the annual update of our VMN Urban and Community Forestry StoryMap. The StoryMap is an online site where we have presented stories of impactful urban forestry projects by VMN volunteers. If you/your chapter has an impactful urban forestry project to add to the map, please, by September 26, (1) check the StoryMap to see if it is already listed, and if it is not, (2) email both Michelle mprysby@vt.edu and VMN Intern Abi Mountford abim22@vt.edu with a (1) name for the project, (2) the location, (3) a 2-3 paragraph description of what you did and what impacts it had, and (4) a photo or two.

Reminder – Your Fungus Artwork due September 15

The 2026 recertification pin, earned by previously certified VMN volunteers who complete at least 40 hours of approved volunteer service and 8 hours of approved continuing education during 2025, will be an image of a native fungus species. Which fungus it will be and the artwork for the pin will be determined through an artwork contest. VMN volunteers are invited to submit their own artwork according to the guidelines below. The winning artwork will be selected by a team of judges that will include the VMN program staff and experts from our sponsoring agencies. All submissions will be recognized in our fall edition of The Pollinator newsletter.

Contest Guidelines

• The artwork must be original artwork created and submitted by a currently enrolled VMN volunteer.
• Please limit submissions to one per volunteer.
• The volunteer may choose which fungus species to illustrate, but it must be a species native to Virginia (to the best of your ability to determine.) We suggest that you choose a mushroom species with a color and/or shape that will stand out well on a pin.
• The artwork may be a drawing, painting, or photograph, but it must be submitted as a digital file, such as a PDF, JPG, PNG, or GIF file. In the past, drawings and paintings have usually been more successful than photos because of greater control over the background.
• The naming convention of your digital file should be “YourLastNameYourFirstName_mushroomname” (for example, MouseMinnie_chickenofthewoods.gif)
• We tend to prefer artwork that allows us to create a pin in the shape of the organism, rather than having to be an oval or rectangular pin. Keep this preference in mind when creating your artwork and imagine a pin cut in the shape of the image. Pins cannot easily have very finely detailed edges, so it is helpful if the image outline is a smoother line. 

To Submit Your Artwork for the Contest

If you want to submit your artwork for the contest, please complete the online contest survey no later than 5:00 pm on September 15, 2025. You will be asked to provide your name, email, VMN chapter, and your permission to use the artwork. Have your digital artwork file ready; you will need to upload it within the survey.

Link to contest survey: https://virginiatech.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_3KSv7bLxOIjFQhM 

Continuing Education Opportunities

We have two VMN CE Webinars for you this month!

VMN CE Webinar – Spanish for Naturalists

Tuesday, September 23, 7:00-8:00 pm

We have a fabulous team of Spanish-speaking volunteers who will give you some language basics and talk about tools for learning Spanish that can be applied to your naturalist work.

Pre-registration required

VMN CE Webinar – Chapter Leadership Demystified

We can’t have VMN chapters or a functional statewide program without local volunteer leadership. Every one of our chapters could use additional help in some way, whether on committees, leading projects, or serving on the board. If you haven’t served in a leadership role in your chapter, this session is a great opportunity to learn more about what it entails and ways you can get involved. We’ll even have a panel of chapter leaders to discuss their experiences and tips.

Pre-registration required

As with all of our VMN CE Webinars, both of these sessions will be recorded and made available on the VMN CE Webinar page of our website. There is no need to ask us about whether they will be recorded!

Youth Mental Health First Aid

Virginia Cooperative Extension is offering an upcoming Youth Mental Health First Aid training designed specifically for volunteers working with youth in Extension programs. This training equips participants with the skills to recognize and respond to signs of mental health challenges in young people. VMN volunteers who are working with 4-H clubs and camps or who would like to do so in the future may find this training beneficial.

Training Details:

• Focus: Youth Mental Health First Aid
• Audience: 4-H and VCE Volunteers
• Date: September 29 or September 30- registration closes 9/23 and all prework must be done before 9/25
• Format: Zoom – usually around 6 hours, with lunch and other breaks
• Registration: http://forms.gle/wCuAjtYSf9DAHDqU8

Mental Health First Aid teaches you how to identify, understand, and respond to signs of mental health and substance use challenges. This evidence-based course will help you:

• Recognize common mental health concerns
• Offer initial support to someone experiencing a crisis
• Connect individuals with appropriate professional help

This FREE training will strengthen your ability to create safe, inclusive, and supportive environments for any youth you interact with.

Who Should Attend:

Master Volunteers, 4-H Volunteers, 4-H Camp Volunteers, ELC Members, etc.

Questions? Contact : Christina

Crmurray@vt.edu or 757-303-1487

Fall Forestry and Wildlife Field Tours with the Virginia Forest Landowner Education Program

Fall Forestry & Wildlife Field Tours

Join landowners, natural resource professionals, and other outdoor lovers for day-long tours that explore a variety of sustainable forestry and wildlife management practices. Tours visit private, public, and industry-owned lands. 

Past tours have visited seedling nurseries, timber harvesting operations, sawmills, pine plantations, cooperages, hardwood forests, arboretums, Christmas tree farms, elk habitat, fisheries, hunting plantations, and more. 

• October 2, Henry County 
• October 9, Wise County
• October 16, Virginia Beach
• October 17, Frederick County
• Agenda and register by mail
• Register online

Just for Fun

Check out this new video about Virginia Tech’s research on hellbenders!