1. UPCOMING EVENTS

Fridays - Fridays at the Scopes (Grants Pass). A chance to work through your bees with fellow southern Bee Atlas folks. Contact Judi Maxwell (jmaxwell9335@gmail.com) if you plan to attend. Josephine County Extension Center, 10am-2pm.

January 18 - Saturdays at the Scopes (PCC-Rock Creek) - FINAL BEE ID DAY of the Year. The last chance to work on the bees you caught in 2019. Portland Community College. Landscape Bldg. #4, 17705 NW Springerville Rd., Portland. Free parking. 10am-4pm. Contact Missy Martin for questions, more info, like what to bring. ohmissmissy@yahoo.com

January 11 and 24 - Saturdays at the Scopes (Corvallis). Another opportunity to work on your bees. Free parking. Drop-in - OSU, Corvallis, Cordley Building room 3058, 10am-3pm (although we have left doors open for longer - no promises). - map and info linked here.

March 7 - BeeVENT Conference. Oregon’s annual pollinator conference. Featuring Olivia Messinger Carril, author of Bees in Your Backyard. Albany, OR

March 8 - Bee Atlas Conference. Our annual meeting. Also featuring Olivia Messinger Carril. Corvallis, OR (more info below).

2. BEE ATLAS CONFERENCE (March 8th, 10:30am - 5:30pm, Horizon Room, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR)

We heard back from several teams about the idea of having a conference made up of volunteer presentations. We heard back that you were interested in spending more time get details on how things have gone and where to focus collection efforts in 2020. We also heard that volunteers wanted a good long time to ask the staff and some of the experts (within and outside the membership) questions. We are still open for more feedback, but below is the tentative.

Tentative Schedule

10:30-11:00am Registration
11:00am-noon What we found - 2019 and 2019
noon-1:30pm Lunch and keynote by Olivia Messinger Carril (author of Bees in Your Backyard)
1:30-2:15pm Award and badges
2:15-3:00pm 2020 - new website, new course, fundraising update
3:00-3:30pm Coffee and networking.
3:30-3:45pm Targets for 2020 and starting special projects
3:45-5:00pm Question and Answer session with bee experts and staff

We will make sure the event is recorded and we will look into Live-streaming. The conference will also be the day after Linn County’s BeeVENT (just down the road in Albany), so for those of you outside the valley, it might make a good weekend. The Hilton Garden Inn is relatively close to the venue (walking distance). More details will follow next month. We will be distributing supplies for 2020 at the event and we will be taking orders for each team beginning in January.

3. PERMIT UPDATE

Andony is hard at work on permits for the next few weeks. He has requests for permits from the following areas. If you are looking for access to land not listed here, please contact Andony early in January (Andony.Melathopoulos@oregonstate.edu).

Mt Hood NF
Willamette NF (including, but not restricted to):
-Detroit Ranger District
- McKenzie Ranger District
Crooked River National Grasslands
Coyle Butte,
Ochoco NF (including, but not restricted to):
- Big Summit Prairie
- Lookout Mountain
- Steens pillar
Deschutes NF, especially the south end of the Bend area and toward La Pine.
Rogue River Siskiyou NF (including, but not restricted to):
- Gold Beach Ranger District
- High Cascades Ranger District
- Powers Ranger District
- Siskyou Mountain Ranger District
- Wild Rivers RD: Cave Junction
Klamath NF (including, but not restricted to):
- Goosenest Ranger District
-Happy Camp/Oak Knoll Ranger District
-Salmon/Scott River Ranger District
Umpqua NF (including, but not restricted to):
- Diamond Lake Ranger District
- NOrth Umpqua Ranger District
- Tiller Ranger District
Freemont-Winema NF (including, but not restricted to):
- Bly Ranger District
-Chemult Ranger District
- Klamath Ranger District
- Lakeview Ranger District
- Paisely Ranger District
- Silver Lake Ranger District
Indian Ford Meadow Preserve
Camp polk Meadow Preserve
Ankeny National Wildlife Refuge
Steigerwald NWR
Chehalim Ridge and Oxbow Park, METRO
State Parks

4. MEMBER SURVEY

Over the next month we would greatly appreciate if you could fill out the following survey. Its rather long, but it will help us immensely in doing our first comprehensive program evaluation.
https://oregonstate.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_e3PTjH5vzp1EtGR