Open Space Council's Blog

Opportunity: National Park Service technical assistance

Are you trying to protect your local rivers, save an unspoiled landscape, or build trails to help everyone in your community enjoy nature?  Applications for the next round of technical assistance can be submitted until August 1, 2010.

Through the Rivers, Trails and Conservation Assistance (RTCA) program, the National Park Service provides staff who can guide communities in conserving waterways, preserving open space, and developing trails and greenways.

Potential applicants are strongly encouraged to discuss their project ideas with our staff near you before submitting an application. 

Visit www.nps.gov/rtca for complete information and application.

Did you attend the conference?

For all 330+ of you that attended last week's conference, we would like to hear from you!  This was our 11th annual conference and we want to make our 12th even better.  Please take 5 minutes and complete our online survey.  

Click here to take the survey. 

Thank you!

Blogs: BAOSC on Outdoor Afro

Created and led by Rue Mapp, Outdoor Afro is a fantastic resource that reconnects African-Americans with natural spaces and one another through recreational activities such as camping, hiking, biking, fishing, gardening, skiing — and more! Outdoor Afro uses social media to create interest communities, events, and to partner with regional and national organizations that support diverse participation in the Great Outdoors.

Rue attended the Open Space Council's conference on May 20th and posted her thoughts on her blog.  We thank her for her important work of reconnecting African Americans to nature and for sharing her experience of the conference with her followers, subscribers and friends. 

Pictures from the 11th Annual Conference!

 

Photos by Rob Brodman. 

Blogs: BAOSC on Triple Pundit

A popular blogger and environmental consultant Deborah Fleischer attended the Open Space Council's conference last week and shared her thoughts about it on Triple Pundit.  She posted two pieces about what she heard at the conference:

• Dr. Daphne Miller's presentation about park prescriptions
• Ashley Boren's presentation about ecosystem services

Thanks goes to Deborah for spreading the word about these important topics.

Video: Open Space Legacy with Doug McConnell

Bay Area Open Space Legacy from OpenRoad on Vimeo.

Wow! The sun shined down on the 11th Annual Conference today

The sun came out, the wind kept calm, and the house was packed with more than 330 Bay Area leaders in land conservation and stewardship.  Today we held our 11th annual conference and it was a big hit.  Thank you to all that came!

We will be sharing photos, video and presentations soon.  So come back soon and visit.

From the top of our lungs we want to thank all who contributed to this year's conference, including:

Our Sponsors:

                                                              

The Exhibitors:

Bay Area Ridge Trail
Bay Nature
Bellinger Foster Steinmetz Landscape Architecture Inc.
Cal-IPC & BAEDN
Connectivity for Wildlife
Erica Fielder Studio
GreenInfo Network
Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District
Pacific Coast Seed
Questa Engineering
San Bruno Mountain Watch
San Francisco Bay Joint Venture
San Francisco Bay Trail Project
Shelterbelt Builders
Sonoma County Regional Parks
California Wilderness Coalition
Marin Open Space District
San Francisco Public Utilities Commission
Paula Lane Action Network
California FarmLink

Helpful volunteers: Conservation Corps North Bay

Delicious food: Back to Earth Organic Catering

Delightful wine: Concannon Vineyard

Creative design: Toomey Design

Talented photography: Rob Brodman

Inspiring video: ConvergenceMedia

Perfect music: Craig Anderson

Many hands and hearts preparing for the 11th Annual Conference

We are working with an amazing group of people and organizations to prepare for this year's conference.  Some have given their time, donated their services, or contributed their products.  All have shown their support for open space in the Bay Area. 

This group includes:

• Back To Earth Organic Catering
  

• Concannon Vineyard

• Conservation Corps North Bay

• ConvergenceMedia Productions, Video

• Craig Anderson, Music, Executive Director of Landpaths

• Ellen Toomey, Design

• Rob Brodman, Photography

Thank you all for your contributions! 

11th Annual Conference SOLD OUT!

We have reached capacity for our 11th annual conference on May 20, 2010!  Thank you to all that have registered - we look forward to seeing you  next week!

We also want to extend a warm and hearty thanks to our Sponsors:

                                                              

How to do Transit and Trails

One of the Council's programs connects people to the outdoors using public transportation and uses a very interactive and very dynamic website to that: Transit and Trails.  We've just created a video that shows how to use the site.  Check it out!