ALT Members Celebrate Achievements at Annual Meeting
On November 16, 2023, we held our Annual Meeting. The event was a great success, with a fantastic turnout and a lot of positive feedback from attendees. The event featured a keynote speaker, updates on land acquisition, financials, and election of directors new to the board or continuing for another three-year term.
The event started with a warm welcome from our president Jay Burby. Our keynote speaker, Eva Vaughan, an environmental analyst for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, then took the stage and delivered an engaging talk on backyard green infrastructure. Eva explained how simple landscaping modifications can turn a backyard or home garden into a rain garden, thus helping to control and purify stormwater runoff. A few native plantings can then attract pollinating insects, helping to preserve biodiversity.
After Eva’s talk, ALT President Jay Burby reviewed highlights from 2023, including the most recent donation of land from the Charron family, that put us above 500 acres owned by the ALT with an additional 236 acres protected for a total of 740 acres. The 12-acre Charron Farm Preserve will continue to be used for the production of hay, but will also be used to complete a trail that will connect to the adjacent Shaw-Denham Memorial Forest. The trail will open to the public once completed.
Ted Leach nominates new and returning board members while President Jay Burby looks on. Image credit: Erin Connell
Veteran board member Ted Leach nominated members Brian Hatch, Roy Belcher, Paula Murphy, and Dawn Bender, whose terms expire in 2023, to serve for another 3-year term. Tarah Kinniburgh was nominated to her first term. Members present voted unanimously to elect all the nominees.
Juliet Teixeira, who is stepping down as ALT Vice President and Community Garden Lead, was thanked for her service and dedication to the work of the land trust, and the community garden, over the past ten years.
The ALT hopes to give renewed emphasis to education and outreach in 2024. Erin Connell, who joined the board last year, has agreed to chair the Education and Outreach Committee. Membership in this committee is open to any ALT member. You don’t have to be on the board. The same is true for most of the ALT standing committees.
Overall, the ALT Annual Meeting was a great success, and we are grateful to everyone who attended and made it such a memorable event. Thank you for your continued support of the Attleboro Land Trust!
Many Hands Make Light Work at Fall Clean-Up
Every year the edges of Larson Woodland are piled high with the leaves dropped from the trees along Riverbank Road and Watson Avenue. It takes a lot of effort to rake them up and move them away from the old stone curb, so that pedestrians can walk along the edge of the woodland.
On Saturday, Nov. 25, we had an outstanding crew of site stewards and other volunteers helping with this effort, including seven members of the Ezekiel Bates Lodge of Attleboro. The Lodge has been partnering with the Attleboro Land Trust as a site steward of Larson Woodland since 2014.
Volunteers got it done in 2023!
At the Annual Meeting on November 16, Property Management Committee Chair Charlie Adler asked everyone present who had helped in the maintenance of our properties over the past year to stand, and he thanked them for the essential work that they voluntarily do for the good of the land trust. He was especially appreciative for the number of people who volunteered to be site stewards this year.
He also singled out the following individuals for noteworthy accomplishments:
- Bill Ward – mowing the hayfields at Richardson.
- The Mowing Team for mowing the lawn areas at Richardson – Phil Boucher, Randy Lithway, Russ Pray. Also pitching in were James Tetreault and Johnny Bender.
- Russ Pray – rebuilding the bulkhead of the Barrows House at Richardson.
- Macie Broussard – monitoring the bluebird houses at Richardson.
- Lauretta Koch – for tending the perennial gardens at Richardson.
- Dave Rolince and Scott Hirshberg for some major repairs to the Scout boardwalk at Colman.
- Mike Davis and his sidekick Alan Henry for being our Storm Response Team and doing whatever is necessary to mitigate the effects of fallen trees at our properties.
- Randy Lithway for suggesting and completing a new pathway across from the Colman parking lot to the beginning of the Vaughan trail.
- And last but not least, board member and attorney Patrick Sullivan for his assistance in matters where our boundaries must be defended from encroachment.