Dear Ontbirds subscribers and OFO members,
The Ontario Bird Records Committee (OBRC) will be holding its Annual
General Meeting on Saturday, April 4. The OBRC meets in-person once per
year at the AGM, where items up for discussion include the review and final
voting on records submitted by 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.
Any OFO member in good standing can nominate another OFO member, including
themselves, to the committee. Each OFO member is allowed to nominate only
one person. At the AGM all of the nominees are announced. 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 their 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. It
is up to the Ontario birding community to ensure that suitable candidates
are put forward as nominees, since the committee members can only select
the new members based on the pool of nominees that are provided.
The OBRC looks to the Ontario birding community for comments, suggestions,
and critique. The OBRC will be nominating 3 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, be actively engaged in the Ontario birding community, and
positively support the OBRC by submitting rare bird reports. 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.
Additionally, the OBRC would welcome any nominations for
additions/deletions to the current OBRC review lists (for all zones and
subspecies). In general, species are included on the review list if they
have fewer than 20 records in 5 years for that review zone.
Nominations for OBRC members and additions/deletions to the review list are
required by April 3, 2020. All communication should be directed to
obrcsecretary@gmail.com.
Kind regards,
Amanda Guercio, OBRC Chair