Jude’s contributions have ranged from the most mundane, ongoing tasks necessary for the smooth operation of a society, such as feeding its members, to high executive positions with responsibility for the governance of the society, co-ordination of data collection, training of leaders through informal field trips and formal workshops through publication of both short-term information and longer-term data.

 

Jude joined the VNHS in 1974. From 1977 to 1985, she was a member of the Board of Directors, serving as President from 1978 to1981. In 2000, she rejoined the Board where she has remained to the present, acting as the Board’s liaison with the Birding Section, and co-ordinating speakers for meetings of both general and birding sections. She has been Chair of both the Birding Section Committee and the Vancouver Bird Records Committee. She has also served previously as Chair of the Bird and Mammal Section (1983), Secretary (2000-2005), a member of the Conservation Committee (1993), a member of an Endangered Species/Habitat Poster Committee (1985-1986), liaison with the field trips coordinator (2003-2004), and one of VNHS’s representatives on the board of Nature B.C. (1982-1993). From 1975 to 1980, she coordinated monthly raptor counts in the Vancouver area, as well as a Bald Eagle survey in the Lower Mainland in the 1980s. The raptor count was resumed in 1998. At the prompting of John Toochin, she was the founding editor of the Birding Section’s newsletter, the Wandering Tattler, editing it for 13 years from 1977 to 1991 and from 2005 to the present. She also regularly contributes articles and chapters to the society’s two newsletters, journal and special publications, sometimes co-authored with her husband Al, and organizes workshops and training sessions on first aid, leading field trips, photography and raptor identification and survey techniques. She leads or co-leads field trips and transports Al to lead more.

 

Although her contributions listed in the previous paragraph might suggest an all-consuming dedication to Nature Vancouver alone, Jude also promotes its objectives in work with like-minded organizations. On the provincial scale, she has represented Nature Vancouver on the board of Nature BC (the Federation of B.C. Naturalists). She is currently the Federation’s Lower Mainland Regional Coordinator and has served terms as the Federation’s Corresponding Secretary, Education Chair, Education and Recreation Committee Chair, Lower Fraser Valley Canada Goose Committee delegate (1978), Lower Mainland Regional Vice-President, President (1984-1987 and 1991-1993) and Past President (1987-1989 and 1993). She was Editor of BC Naturalist from 1985 to 1997. She has also served on the board of the Federation’s long-term savings agency, the FBCN Foundation, including terms as its President and its Secretary. Her current and past terms of service in various VNHS and FBCN positions have also overlapped with terms in various positions on two other FBCN clubs, the Burke Mountain Naturalists (President for four years and currently their representative on the board of the Federation) and Langley Field Naturalists (current President). She represents the Langley Field Naturalists on the board of the Campbell Valley Park Association and has served on the board of Nature Canada (the Canadian Nature Federation). In addition to Jude’s direct contributions to the work of Nature Vancouver and the national and provincial federations, she has further contributed to the goals of these organizations by helping to build and maintain connections among them, and between them and other organizations with overlapping interests and objectives. Her professional work, first in B.C. Parks, then from 1984 until her recent retirement in the Parks Planning and Research Department of the Greater Vancouver Regional District, helped maintain and promote good communication between naturalists and the government agencies that should be serving them. She has served on the Board of Directors of the Biodiversity Centre for Wildlife Studies since its inception in 2004, and as its Secretary since 2005. She joined the Board of the B.C. Field Ornithologists in 2006. She has also contributed to the work of Birds on the Bay, the B.C. Waterfowl Society and the B.C. Wild Bird Trust and is involved with the B.C. Breeding Bird Atlas project of Bird Studies Canada. In addition to these many naturalist organizations, she is active in the scouting movement, serving as Deputy Regional Commissioner of Scouts Canada.

 

Jude’s contributions to conservation, natural history study and nature education in B.C.’s Lower Mainland are also not restricted to club efforts. In 1976, she succeeded Neil Dawe under her maiden name, Jude Fuller, as compiler and organizer of the highly successful Ladner Christmas Bird Count. She and Al, her husband, organized and compiled that count again in 1978, and Jude has compiled or co-compiled it every year since. They also wrote the chapter on the Vancouver area in Canada’s first nation-wide bird-finding guide. Al is an outstanding example of an old-fashioned general naturalist, skilled in identifying and observing a wide array of plants and animals and he was instrumental in teaching Jude and their late son, Danny, to identify many of the beings that delight us naturalists. These skills, combined with Jude’s organizational abilities, have made them an eminently effective team, working on behalf of conservation and nature education in B.C. as a whole, and especially in the Lower Mainland. Jude’s skills and contributions are not restricted to conserving and enjoying nature. She also contributes substantially to the comfort, well-being and sociability of naturalists by preparing or helping to prepare post-count dinners for the three largest Lower Mainland Christmas bird counts, and meals for annual general meetings and other events of such groups as Birds on the Bay and the Wild Bird Trust of B.C. 

 

Jude’s efforts on behalf of VNHS and other groups have been recognized previously. She and Al shared VNHS’s Beamish Award for Environmental Education in 1996. The provincial Federation awarded her an Outstanding Service Award in 1998 and its prestigious Elton Anderson Award in 1989, in recognition of “outstanding service to the FBCN in the field of conservation”. In 2000, she and Al were both made Honourary Life Members of the Langley Field Naturalists and given City of Burnaby Environmental Education Awards. In 2003, she and Al were both awarded Queen’s Jubilee Medals. I applaud Nature Vancouver for adding the Kay and Charles Ney Award for Exemplary Service to this list of much-deserved awards to such a deserving recipient!