If you haven’t already heard, the Hudson Basin River Watch, in partnership with the Hudson River Estuary Program’s “Trees for Tribs” inititaive, has been selected as one of 10 nationwide finalists for Redwood Creek Wine’s 2010 Greater Outdoors Project. The goals of the “Trees for Tribs” intitiative are to enhance stream buffers and recreational experiences by planting native trees & shrubs, and to monitor water quality at project sites to demonstrate improvements.
Through an online voting system, the general public will decide who wins the $50,000 grant. As citizens of the Hudson River Watershed, we all benefit from this program and the improvements made to the health of our streams and rivers. This is a simple way to show your support for healthy streams in teh Hudson River watershed, and for Hudson Basin River Watch and the Hudson River Estuary Program! Learn more about the project and CAST YOUR VOTE for HBRW and “Trees for Tribs” project, by clicking here.
Online voting began April 1 and will run through August 31. Individuals are limited to one vote per day.
Here is how you can help:
1. Simply click on the link, register (one time only) and vote every day until August 31st!
2. Invite your groups’ members to show their support by casting votes in favor of this project.
3. Let all of your friends on facebook, twitter, myspace, etc., know how they can support your efforts to protect the Hudson River watershed, by voting for the HBRW/Trees for Tribs project.
4. Spread the word to anyone interested in watershed and natural resource protection!
Thanks for doing your part to protect the Hudson River watershed.
3 Comments
I can’t say I like the changes you’ve made to the Our Hudson website. It seems to me you’ve taken away all the ability to communicate TO you, and created a website that only speaks but does not listen. I posted a number of items on the previous version, which have now disappeared. When I tried to contact your new website, I searched but could find NO means to respond directly. Thus I a commenting in the response space for a specific article. Why is there no place to give input? Why have you changed from a site engaged in listening to people into another kind of site: one which which talks and talks, but has no mechanism to hear responses?
I’m afraid that being reduced to VOTING is nothing nearly like having a voice- soliciting votes is not nearly like listening.
Hello Ed,
We understand your concerns. There are a number of reasons for the change, but let me first answer a few of your other questions.
The ability to communicate is still here. We have posted on the “Get Involved” page all the ways in which you can speak to us and the community. We chose to go with a bolg based forum with commenting options to stoke debates on certain topics and articles. The most important topics, and comments on those topics, will be available for not only you to see, but also the general public. The new site will allow for this to happen. The old site was a closed community that was not usable to anyone who wanted to casually stop in. Going forward, comments are the way to respond directly to us and the whole community.
All content from the old site has been migrated over to the new site. Feel free to use the searching function at the top of the page to find your past contributions. Also, feel free to keep contributing. All instructions on how to do so can be found by clicking on the “Get Involved” page.
As to why we made the change to the new site, there are a few reasons. As stated before, the old site was a closed community that required membership for participation. The new site is open to the public. We have created a membership function via a facebook group which you can join by clicking the logo on the bottom of the home page. The facebook group will function the same way the old site did.
The new site is also meant to gather information for 6 task forces that will be working on agendas for a conference later this summer. This new site gives them a space to contribute information and listen to the community in an organized manor. All discussions and information on this new site are sortable by date, category, community and person. With the amount of participation we are looking for, the new site makes it much easier for us to reach out and listen to a lot of people quickly. Let me know if that answers your questions.
Best,
Adam
Digital Director
OurHudson.org
Hail HRWA and OurHudson..you are doing fantastic work. I will send OurHudson.org to HVE.
I like ‘Trees for Tributaries’ because their leaf packs perform mightily in purifying water.. I will send OurHudson.org to HVE. At the present time, some our subscribers are working on a letter to Willie Janeway, Head, Region 3 DEC, prompted by the removal of 46 acres of trees for reasons of saftey from the Dutchess Airport. Strong cutting-restoration regulations are needed.
If anybody here wishes to join the HVE free conversations from across the Valley…cut and paste the following URL
http://www.hudson-valley-environment-subscribe@npogroups.org
Peter