Our day with Alycia

As many of you know, Alycia Crall is our new Virginia Master Naturalist State-Wide Coordinator.  

Alycia Crall is our new VMN statewide coordinator!

Alycia replaced the former Coordinator, Michelle Prysby.  I for one was really worried when Michelle left her position because she was doing a fabulous job and I wasn’t sure that her replacement would be able to fill her shoes.

Well not to worry!  We have now worked with Alycia for a few months and she has proven to be a more than able replacement for Michelle. Like Michelle, Alycia is very enthusiastic about supporting our chapter and is very personable and knowledgeable. She came to our March meeting to introduce herself to our chapter and got to meet many of our members and talk to us about her goals.

So with that background, I took a chance to invite Alycia to accompany Dick LeRoy and me on one of our eMammal camera deployment hikes to Carvin’s Cove on May 13^th. As luck would have it Alycia was both available and enthused about getting a day out of the office.  She also asked if she could do a “needs assessment” with some of our members as well since she would be in our neck of the woods.  We agreed, but allowed as it would make a long day.

Alycia and Dick with eMammal field camera

So on the 13^th we met Alycia and proceeded to Carvin’s Cove and hiked to our cameras on a beautiful Spring day in the mountains. After redeploying our 3 field cameras and hiking about 6 miles or so, we returned to Westlake and the SMLA office and Alycia conducted 2 one hour needs assessments with some of our members. The first was with BRFAL board of directors and the second with some of our non-officer members. Alycia said that the assessment went well and she got many suggestions and ideas. She will provide feedback to us in the future.

"Sounds like..." at the VMN Needs Assessment Meeting

The best part of the day was getting to know Alycia better and to further confirm that she is trying to help our chapter better achieve our goals. Thanks for coming Alycia!

Rich Brager

To learn more about the Virginia Master Naturalist Program click here.

Follow the BRFAL Chapter on Facebook here.