Meeting
Announcements and Reminders
The District Governor visit is on July 28th.  Board members need to be here at 10:30.
 
Tim announced that 4th of July will be our day to provide beer at the Aptos Park after the parade. Doug will send around an e-mail reminding volunteers of their time slots.
 
Doug read thank you notes from two students who have been awarded Rotary scholarships.
 
Heather Moffat was our speaker today from the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History where she has been director since 2015. Her degree is in geology and she has two master’s degrees. She came to us from the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History.
 
 
 
The museum at1305 East Cliff Drive has been here for 111 years. In 1869 it was part of a lighthouse and local fossils, mollusks and Indian artifacts were among the first exhibits. In 1905 the collection was donated to the City of Santa Cruz. The museum opened in the basement of the public library. In the 1950’s it settled into its current home in the old Seabright library. Since 2009 it has been community run (not operated by the city).
 
The mission of the museum is to connect people with nature. Thirty thousand (30,000 visitors) are reached annually, 6000 of whom are school children. Over 16,000 natural objects are in the museum which itself has been recently refurbished.
 
Heather updated us on the museum’s current activities. These include nature based school programs such as the Neary Lagoon, Oholone, and Pogonip programs. There are public program including nature sketching, how to make your own field journal,  birding along the San Lorenzo River, tidepool walks, the Seabright Beach Clean Up, Naturalist Night where educational programs are presented and Free First Friday where the admission to the museum is free. They are now working with UCSC interns to develop the animal program for kindergarten thru second grade students.
 
The museum also does joint programs with the Rio Theater and other events such as festivals and open houses throughout the year. And finally they do outreach. This summer they will do “on the spot” pop-up exhibits along East Cliff Dr. Permanent exhibits (such as the new Intertidal Touch Pools) are always available with investigation stations that connect to the exhibits such as rocks and fossils and animal pelts. Every year they have an Art of Nature exhibit with the California guild of natural science illustrators. As they move towards the future they are looking for more ways to connect the community to the museum. For more information see www.santacruzmuseum.org.