At the Long Island Reptile Expo, held last Sunday, a few families approached the Long Island Herpetological Society's (LIHS) table with the same question: 'Does the LIHS offer a children's program?'.
While we had to answer no to that specific question, we reminded folks that we are a family friendly society. However, I had some communication with John H, one of the board members, during the past week and I brought up the subject. He informed me that the idea of a children's program has been discussed by the LIHS executive board in the past and that apparently the stumbling block was the lack of volunteers to run it. I told John I would do it but only if we can get another dedicated LIHS member to volunteer.
Today, at the LIHS monthly meeting, John brought it up and asked for volunteers. Tara F volunteered and it looks as if the program will be taking off soon. In addition, John made a motion to the board to funnel a couple of hundred dollars into the program from the LIHS treasury. They voted on it immediately and all of the board members who were present voted in favor of it.
Tara and I spoke about it a bit and we will be brainstorming to see what ideas we can come up with for fun things for the LIHS kids to do and how to incorporate them into the program. We did not name the program but I think that The LIHS Tadpoles might be in order or we could just call it LIHS Kids but I will run that by Tara and the board at a later date. Tara and I also discussed timing and we think we can get the program up and running by the January LIHS meeting. We will probably discuss it further with the membership at the November and/or December meetings.
Speaking of the membership, we will be looking for temporary volunteers to participate once we get it up and running. We may need help with field trips, transportation, helping to keep and eye on the kids and so on. We don't expect any one person to volunteer for every event we have planned with the youngsters but maybe to volunteer just for an individual event now and again. If you think you might have an interest, let us know. Of course, if we go on a field trip, say maybe to the zoo or field herping, we would ask at least some of the parents to help with those. We have not discussed the age of the children yet, which is another thing to consider. I am going to guess that younger children who are under a certain age will always have to have a parent present and that kids over a certain age may be allowed to join in the kids' group activities without a parent remaining present so long as they are well behaved and respectful. It is another thing we need to discuss between Tara, the board and myself. As I said though, we will figure it out as we move between now and the January meeting when we expect to commence the program.
So far, I have pretty much been writing this for the adults - now let me get to wrting something for you who will make up the program - you LIHS kids. We need to know if you are interested in this program. If you are, you can give us some ideas for programs and events you think would be fun. So far we have a few ideas but more would be better. Some possibilities are a zoo trip, a field herping trip, animal feedings, show and tell with live reptiles & amphibians, a take care of a herp for a month foster type program, vivarium building and a herp photo contest. If you can think of anything else that might be fun, let us know. You can either leave a comment to this post, send me an email (via the link in the profile for the blog), or send Tara F an email via the link under Executive Board on the LIHS website.
We will try to let you know more about the LIHS kids' program by the December meeting (holiday party) at the latest. Tara and I are looking forward to making LIHS meetings much more fun for our younger members!
All the best,
Glenn B
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