NEW BIRDLIFE OVERBERG HONORARY MEMBERSHIPS

On Monday 12 July Trevor Hardaker entertained members of Birdlife Overberg with a beautifully illustrated talk on their trip to Argentina and the Antarctic peninsula. This was our traditional winter soup and sherry evening. Our thanks go to Trevor and the ladies who prepared the meal for a very entertaining and enjoyable evening.
The BLO committee decided to bestow honorary club and BLSA membership on four individuals who have made enormous contributions to the conservation of birds and their habitats over the last six months. These are:
ANGELA KEY:
Local artist Angela Key donated a fantastic painting of an African Penguin called “Surf Report” that we are currently raffling to raise funds for the development of educational programmes for this endangered bird. This painting added real spice to BLO's first golf day on 10 June and details of the painting and the raffle could be found elsewhere on this website. Angela has contributed to several similar fund raising efforts in the past and to crown it all she has also sold the most raffle tickets up till now. The organizations that will benefit from this effort are BLSA's Seabirds Division, the Dyer Island Conservation Trust and SANCCOB.
GLENDA POPE
Glenda is the owner the Mission House Art Gallery in Onrus and has framed Angela's painting mentioned above free of charge. Besides this she has started participating in the raffle aggressively and it is fairly difficult to leave the gallery without buying a raffle ticket. These are the types of contributions to the conservation of species that often go unnoticed.
DR. STUART SHEARER
Stuart is a BLO member who resides in Greyton and has in recent months become heavily involved in commenting on EIA processes related to the alarming number of applications for the development of wind farms in South Africa in general and our region in particular. He has assembled a team of experts to assist him in this regard and their work now represents the “state of the art” on how such comments should be done. An example of one of these comments could be found under the Conservation section of this website and is dated 14 July.
LEE WEPENER
Lee has been a loyal member of BLO for many years and has recently brought her considerable graphic design skills on board. She has designed a series of colorful posters of common birds in specific Overberg habitats such as mountains, fynbos, the wheatfields and coastal areas. These posters have been very well received at our golf day, expos and exhibits and are assisting us tremendously to broaden our membership base.
The committee members of Birdlife Overberg hereby express their sincere appreciation to Angie, Glenda, Stuart and Lee for the considerable contribution that they have made to our club activities. It is hoped that this small gesture of bestowing honorary club and BirdLife South Africa membership to them will lead to a long association with BirdLife activities.

Anton with Angie Key, Trevor Hardaker, Lee Wepener, Glenda Pope and Dr. Stuart Shearer