If you are having any doubts about your ability to staff the MOU booth, trust me on this one - no experience necessary! No one has done the booth we are setting up and it is easy as pie to staff. You don't need to be a great or even above par or even below par birder - you just have to like birds and talk with folks who want to talk about birds. The visitors do practically all of the talking. Odds are you will be co-staffing with someone who complements you exactly so that no matter what questions anyone can come up with, you can throw out an answer of some sort. My favorite answer is "I don't know!" and actually for most I don't. But being a birder, I can come up with possible leads for them to find the answer - like the MOU web site, or the bird books at the table, or the other guy at the booth. The new spinning wheel part of our booth will have bird pics - common easy birds for the most part - and the folks spin the wheel to win a bird tattoo or a poster or something else. Not a very bird intellectual job at the base level.
This is however not to say that you experts out there would be bored. Most folks love to hear the details and deeper look and understanding of birds they have seen or have questions about. They might whistle a bird call or give a vague description that with your years of experience can figure out. They love it and quite honestly I did to for the times I worked it out. When I do the booth, I love putting tattoos on the kids or adults that come by and the only requirement before was for them to say the name of the bird. For many it was the first time they had ever said the words. It is a huge joy to see their face when they get "Ruby-throated Hummingbird" out instead of just hummingbird. You make the booth by being whoever you are - as a person who likes birds. That is actually the only requirement. Except maybe a willingness to be with other birder or folks who might be interested. And perhaps it could be a requirement to have fun, to revel in connecting with a child about birds, to give a eager ear to someone's bird story, to let someone be heard about a bird they saw, to people watch till your eyes get tired. OK so that was more than just one possible requirement. Trust me here, you know more about birds than you think or you are more capable of connecting with other birders than you think. Every time I have staffed the bird booth at the fair, I have at least one life experience that I get to savor and tell others about for years. I get to smile again about it. I get to feel warm again about it. I get to feel like I give for the sake of giving again and I get to feel like I make a difference in other people's life in my own way - again. Please join me in this experience. I look forward to seeing you there and hearing your stories of your experiences. Not to mention all the new stuff we have added to make our combined experience - visitor and staff - sweet. Did I mention how good this looks on a resumá½³? Here's how: 1 Go_www.google.com_ (http://www.google.com) 2. Click "Sign In" on the top right hand corner of your screen. 3. Sign in using "mouvolunteer" as your "email" and "ilovemou" as your password 4. Click the "more" drop down menu item located at just about the G in Google along the top of your screen. 5. Click "Calendar" from the drop down menu. 6. You will see a calendar centered on today's date. Scroll through until you get to August 26th 2010 where you will start to see the MOU booth shifts in red. 7. Click on the shift that you want to sign up for. I find that clicking on the actual word "Shift 1"(or 2 or 3) is the quickest and easiest. 8. Write your name after "shift 1, 2, or 3", in the "what" box at the top of the form. 9. Click "save" 10. Log out (on top right hand corner of the screen). OR email Jen or Thomas and tell us what shift you want. Jen Vieth: [email protected] Thomas Maiello: [email protected] Thomas Maiello Angel Environmental Management, Inc. Maple Grove, MN ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
