Dear Birdnews subscribers and OFO members, The Ontario Bird Records Committee (OBRC) will be holding its Annual General Meeting on Saturday, April 9th. The OBRC meets once per year at the AGM, where items up for discussion include the review and final voting on records submitted by OFO members and the Ontario birding community, a review of the review lists previously identified by past committees (http://ofo.ca/site/Obrc), and the election of new OBRC members. Traditionally, the AGM is held in-person at the ROM, but as in 2020/21, this year's AGM will be held virtually. The OBRC looks to the Ontario birding community for comments, suggestions, and critique. The OBRC will be nominating 2 new members to 3 year terms, commencing this year. The OBRC, at this time, would welcome nominations from OFO members for people to serve on the OBRC. Nominees should be OFO members in good standing, have an excellent knowledge in the field identification of birds, be actively engaged in the Ontario birding community, and positively support the OBRC through various means (e.g., submitting rare bird reports, provide information/documentation to the OBRC, etc.). Ideally, nominations will include a few sentences of text providing justification why they believe that this nominee is well suited to serve on the committee. Any OFO member in good standing can nominate another OFO member, including themselves, to the committee. Each OFO member is limited in that they are allowed to nominate only one person. At the AGM all of the nominees are announced, and each currently serving member of the committee votes privately and ranks each of the nominees in the order that they think would best serve on the committee. The rankings are then tallied up based on everyone's votes. Following the AGM, the Chair will contact the candidates regarding willingness to serve, in order of ranking, until willing candidates for each vacancy have been obtained. The main criteria for selecting suitable candidates are that the individual demonstrates an expert knowledge of the field identification of birds, and is a member in good standing with OFO. The full process is noted in the OBRC Operating Guidelines, found at http://ofo.ca/site/Obrc. In addition to the standard rotation of serving committee members mentioned above, we are also seeking a secretary. As above, the secretary must be a member of OFO in good standing. The secretary cannot also be a voting member of the committee. A full description of the secretary's duties are found in section 3.4 of the bylaws (found at the following page: http://www.ofo.ca/site/Obrc). The secretary serves one year at a time but can serve an unlimited number of consecutive terms. The secretary has a varied job and is welcome to seek support - in fact this is encouraged. The filing systems are all in place but the secretary needs to be organised and responsive to submissions (mainly acknowledgments) and be comfortable with Gmail and Google Drive. For further information, please reach out at the address below. Finally, the OBRC would welcome any nominations for additions/deletions to the current OBRC review lists (for all zones and subspecies). In general, species are on the review list if they have fewer than 20 records in 5 years for that review zone. The OBRC would welcome a list of records of species/subspecies that are suggested over the past 5-year period as a way for the OBRC to accurately identify species/subspecies to be removed or added to the review lists. Nominations for OBRC members and proposed additions/deletions to the review list are required by April 6th, 2021. All communication should be directed to obrc@ofo.ca <mailto:obrc@ofo.ca> . Best regards, Mark Read OBRC Chair Mark D. Read 337 Button Bay Road, Wolfe Island, Kingston, Ontario K0H 2Y0 Canada Mobile: +1 (613) 217-1246 Email: <mailto:markdread@gmail.com> markdread@gmail.com <https://support.ebird.org/en/support/solutions/articles/48000803210-sensiti ve-species-in-ebird> eBird Guidelines for Reporting Sensitive Species