MEMBERSHIP MATTERS: recognizing your milestones
The MFNC is a friendly club; our president’s wolf howl signals the start of each meeting, cutting through the buzz of conversations that fill our meeting room in normal pre-COVID times. Connecting virtually, we miss that person-to-person bonding.
We used our June 2021 meeting, our send-off to the summer break, to highlight our nature enthusiasts with 10 or more years of participation in the club. We also wanted to acknowledge the contributions of founding members Eric Ridgen and Michael Runtz (still our president! We would love to have had each person stand for applause but had to settle instead for a reading of their names.
You’ll find those below as well as the criteria we used to determine our numbers.
How we arrived at the numbers
- For our 2020 AGM, we decided to recognize members with 10 or more years of participation in the club.
- The names we included are based on records that start with the launch of the club in 1984 and continue up to and including the 2019-20 membership year.
- Grouping the memberships by five-year milestones, we found we had nature enthusiasts with memberships ranging from 10-, 15-, 20-, 25-, 30- and 35-years. All those we’ve named in this report had renewed in 2019-20, which we decided would be a requirement. If you forgot to renew in 2019-20, your membership clock/count goes back to 0.
- We decided, though, to stop the clock for three members who joined way back in 1984; although not 2019-20 members, we feel they came close enough.
Although we did our best tracking the data we may have gotten yours wrong; if so, we apologize. Let us know and we’ll have a second look. Early club records were not digitized.
Special thanks to Brian Voss and Roger Magoon for helping me compile this information.
Karen Runtz
| Name | Milestone |
|---|---|
| Dave and Mary Forsyth | 10 |
| Jim Lougheed | 10 |
| Lyn and Jim Arsenault | 10 |
| Cathy and Ken Stewart | 10 |
| Maureen and Paul Carrier | 10 |
| Bernard Gesicki & Rona Bloomfield | 10 |
| Liza Badham | 10 |
| Brian Carson | 10 |
| Olga Janoska | 10 |
| Mary Ellen Jack | 10 |
| Roger Bird | 10 |
| Susan and Chuck Gillan | 10 |
| Jan Mansfield | 10 |
| John Grierson | 10 |
| Jeff Skevington & family | 10 |
| Barb and Neil Robertson | 10 |
| John Willis | 10 |
| Garry and Linda Lackner | 10 |
| Karen Runtz | 10 |
| Susan and Chuck Gillan | 10 |
| Vern and Judy Seligy | 10 |
| Estelle Rother | 10 |
| Stephen Duff | 10 |
| Norm and Barbara Chouinard | 10 |
| Nadine Tate & family | 10 |
| Sandy Bickerstaff | 10 |
| John Willis | 10 |
| Anne and Barry Burnett | 10 |
| Name | Milestone |
|---|---|
| Mary Marsh | 15 |
| Donna Metcalfe | 17 |
| Linda Sewell | 20 |
| Brian and Lucy Voss | 20 |
| Art Goldsmith and Janice Tripp | 20 |
| Brian and Lynda Wright | 20 |
| Ruth Bowes | 25 |
| Janny De Jager | 25 |
| Karen Krueger | 25 |
| Murray and Judy Borer | 25 |
| Diny and Ken Mcnairn | 25 |
| Fred Runge and Barbra Smith | 25 |
| Name | Milestone |
|---|---|
| Ryan and Julie Zimmerling | 30 |
| Renee Stewart | 30 |
| Michael Runtz* | 35 |
| Eric Ridgen* | 35 |
| * Founding members |
| Name | Milestone |
|---|---|
| Tony and Mary Crowe** | 20+ |
| Betty Anne Beckmann and family** | 20+ |
| Jim Ferguson** | 20+ |
| Steve Duffield and Joan Shute | Life Membership |
| Donna Metcalfe | Life Membership |
| **Although not current members, these 1984 members participated for more than 20 years. |