Carol Vellutini
Redwood Chapter Outings Chair

Happy New Year. The Outings program for the Redwood Chapter offers many activities for our members. Completely volunteer managed, the program has outings chairs for each group. Where there is no group outings chair, the Chapter Outings Chair fills in as needed. We always need more volunteers for our program. Ongoing training programs will help you get started. Look in the Needles for new leader programs. Many outdoor oriented programs have a paid executive director and staff. We do not. We count on your membership to support our efforts.

Creek Stewardship was my priority for 2002-2003. In Sonoma County we now have numerous watershed groups. This invaluable volunteer effort is proving beneficial to the health of the creeks. Many eyes are now watching neighborhood creeks. Water is the ultimate resource. Stream bioassessment, restoration, first flush, encouraging cities to use permeable surfaces in developments, groundwater recharge, clean-ups, urban runoff and daylighting streams are just a few projects.

Some North Bay Watershed Groups accompany this article. Look some of them up to get an idea of what goes on. Then adopt your watershed.

• Lagunitas Creek Lagunitas Salmon Protection and Watershed Network (SPAWN): Reuven Walder, 415-488-0370x102, spawn@igc.org, http://www.spawnusa.org/
• Napa River Napa County Resource Conservation District, 707-252-4188
• Friends of Novato Creek: Sue Lattanzio, 415-883-8339
• Redwood Creek-Marin National Park Service: Carolyn Shoulders, 415-331-0771
• Russian River Friends of the Russian River: 707-865-1305, pirana@ev1.net
• Sonoma Creek Sonoma Valley Sonoma Ecology Center, 707-996-9744, sec@vom.com, www.sonomaecologycenter.org
• Stemple Creek and Tributaries Trout Unlimited: John Milanovich, johnkostin@hotmail.com, 415-292-6589, www.northbay-tu.org Tolay Creek Sonoma
• Save the Bay, (510) 452-9261, Anya Peron-Burdk, anya@savesfbay.org, www.savesfbay.org