Arkansas Master Naturalists

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Greetings and Happy New Year.

This is the first of several emails you will be receiving over the next week or so to get you started on your Master Naturalist in Training Program. You should have received a welcome letter earlier, although I know we always miss a few by accident.

Here are a few things you need to know about the first class on January 17. 

·      Location: Pauline Whitaker Animal Science Center, 1335 W Knapp Dr, Fayetteville, AR 72704. (This is just off Garland Street about a mile or so from the I49 exit). 

·      Class Time: Registration will open about 8:15 AM and Class will begin at 9AM. The afternoon session for this class Eco-Regions, should be over by @3:30 PM at the latest.

·      Registration: At registration, you will receive your temporary name tag and your books. Please bring a refillable coffee/water bottle, and something to take notes.

The information from the class, including some powerpoint presentations, will be available in the documents folder on the website at: 

       https://arkansasmasternaturalists.org/content.aspx? page_id=86&club_id=250502

·      Lunch: For this first meeting the Chapter will provide a soup and sides lunch. Soups will be regular, gluten free, vegetarian and vegan options. There also be crackers, fruit, cookies and other snacks. 

·      Coffee Service: At all in-person classes, we provide regular and decaffeinated coffee, hot water for tea, and water if it’s not available at the location.  

·      Refillable water/coffee bottle: As one step toward reducing our environmental footprint, we generally use only reusable dishes, plates and cutlery. Please bring your own refillable water/coffee bottle. 

·      Agenda: The morning session from 9AM-11:30AM will be information about the mission of the Arkansas Master Naturalists, our NWA Chapter, what the classes will be like, what to expect and how to record your hours, plus a lot more. The afternoon session, ending about 3PM, will be Eco-Regions of Arkansas and is the only required class for all chapters in   the state. 

·      Weather: So far it doesn’t appear that weather will be a factor, but if the situation arises where the weather turns bad, we’ll notify all of you through your group, post it on our chapter page, and send out a text (if you have agreed to it). We do not send many texts to our members. I can’t remember the last text I got from the Chapter.

If you can’t attend:

Although we strongly recommend that you attend this first in-person class, if you can’t I’ll try and set up a makeup of the orientation portion of the class as a Zoom meeting. Please let me know. 

The class schedule and other orientation documents we will be adding before the first class are found here:

 https://arkansasmasternaturalists.org/content.aspx?page_id=86&club_id=250502.

You will need to be signed into the website to access them. You will need to go to NWAMN documents > 2026 NiT Notebook > Orientation and schedule. We’ll be adding handouts and information materials for most of the classes under the Class Information/Handouts folder.