Photo: Pileated Woodpecker, John Troth/Audubon Photography Awards
On Sunday, June 9, 2024 at 1:00 pm at the National Wildlife Federation Building in Reston, ASNV will hold a meeting for members only, to vote on whether to adopt “Northern Virginia Bird Alliance” as its new name.
ASNV’s Board of Directors voted to recommend this new name and urges you to vote to adopt it. This is an important step in our 12-month long process in which we have partnered with our communities to find a name that clearly communicates what we do, what we value, and how we welcome all who want to conserve and enjoy birds and nature in northern Virginia.
We chose “Northern Virginia Bird Alliance” because it makes clear that our focus is on birds, and that working with people is important. We voted in January to drop the Audubon name because our survey results indicated that it was a barrier to participation for some groups in our increasingly diverse northern Virginia area; younger people felt especially strongly that a name change was necessary. We strive to welcome all in our region to help protect and enjoy birds and wildlife. In fact, given the dire threats that development and climate change pose to birds and wildlife, we feel that we can only achieve our mission now and into the future if we increase participation from across all northern Virginia communities.
Another factor in the Board’s decision was that the “Bird Alliance” label has been adopted by a number of large chapters of the National Audubon Society with tens of thousands of members, including San Francisco, Chicago, Detroit, New York City, and Washington, DC. Therefore our new name will ally us with those organizations in a common objective of conserving birds, their habitats, and the environment.
We acknowledge the sizable impact that John James Audubon had on American ornithology, and in the coming months we will be recognizing the positive contributions that he and others have made to U.S. ornithology, bird art, and bird conservation.
To make the new name official, we need to have a vote of the current members of ASNV. There are two ways to vote: you can attend our special members-only meeting at 1:00 PM on Sunday, June 9, at 11100 Wildlife Center Drive, Reston VA; or you can fill out a proxy form and give it to a member who will attend the meeting (with a paper copy of the proxy vote.) The proxy form is here. You can give the proxy form to any member you choose, but please make sure the member plans to attend before assigning your proxy.
Of course, you can vote either “yes” or “no” on adopting this new name. But we hope you will vote to change our name to “Northern Virginia Bird Alliance.” We are eager to move forward with this new name and re-energize the organization’s conservation efforts here in northern Virginia. A no vote will not overturn the Board’s decision to drop the Audubon name but will require further deliberation on a new name.