MMRG event was all about building walls, and bridges

Stonewall builder and author Kevin Reynolds was a featured guest speaker. (Kate Wilcox photo)

WOLFEBORO, N.H. - Moose Mountains Regional Greenways held its 2016 Annual Meeting festivities on April 17 at the Kingswood Greenside Tavern in Wolfeboro, NH with nearly 100 people in attendance. MMRG Board Chair Jack Savage welcomed the crowd and extended thanks to many volunteers for their dedicated work, to several landowners present who have conserved their property with MMRG's help, to the many donors of items for the silent auction, and to Norman Vetter Foundations, the business sponsor of the event.

In his remarks, Savage outlined three key elements for achieving success in land conservation, focus, opportunity, and capacity, and concluded that MMRG is in an excellent position on all three counts. MMRG will sharpen its focus for future land conservation efforts with a new regional conservation planning process that it is now underway. Meeting attendees participated in this process by identifying their favorite special places on a map of the 7-town region served by MMRG; the public and many stakeholder groups will be engaged in months ahead. Conservation opportunities are currently in abundance, exemplified by several new projects at varying stages: a contract for purchase of the Branch River Conservation Area, an easement project on the verge of commitment, ongoing discussions with another landowner, and inquiries from others. MMRG's capacity to carry out conservation projects is in good shape due to the recent hire of a full-time Executive Director and the repeated fundraising success of business sponsorships for the annual Woods, Water and Wildlife Festival, a family-oriented event that celebrates the great NH outdoors.

In a short business meeting, MMRG members elected Emily Lord of Middleton to a first-time three-year term and several Board members to repeat three-year terms: Art Slocum (Wolfeboro), Bruce Rich (Wakefield), Dan Coons (Wolfeboro), and Nancy Spencer Smith (Wakefield). Board members with continuing terms include Cynthia Wyatt (Milton), Jack Savage (Middleton), Lorrie Drake (New Durham), Nicole Csiszer (Brookfield), Ron Gehl (New Durham) and Wendy Scribner (At-large). The newly-elected Board then elected its Executive Officers: Jack Savage (Chair), Nicole Csiszer (Vice Chair), Bruce Rich (Treasurer) and Art Slocum (Secretary).

Founding member Cynthia Wyatt bestowed organizational awards on two recently retired Board members, former long-serving Treasurer and volunteer bookkeeper Jon Batson and long-time dedicated Director Steve Panish. Said Cynthia, "MMRG would not be the stable and effective organization that it is today were it not for the outstanding contributions of these two individuals." As she handed them plaques and gift certificates, she added, "The real award is the everlasting quality of every land protection project taken on by MMRG."

It was the first MMRG Annual Meeting for new Executive Director Patti Connaughton-Burns, who expressed how pleased she was to finally put faces to many names on MMRG's membership list and her appreciation for the energy, commitment and welcome she feels from Board, Staff and MMRG members. She then spoke about the Branch River Conservation Area, MMRG's first outright land purchase, a 17-acre property with 5,000 feet of frontage along the Branch River in Wakefield. She noted that a recent mailing to Wakefield residents about this project had elicited an immediate strong response of donations, phone calls, and potential new conservation projects.

Having recently re-located to Wolfeboro from southern New Jersey, Connaughton-Burns cited the lands in New Jersey used as important migratory bird stopovers that have been diminished by recent development crush as an example of how quickly open space can be lost. Referring to the crucial role of land conservation, she commented, "We may feel protected right now, but it doesn't take much to lose it."

Featured guest speaker, author and tradesman Kevin Gardner, commenced by unloading a bucket of small stones onto a table. His disclaimer that the purpose of the stones was purely to keep his hands busy and had nothing to do with what he would talk about seemed belied by his careful construction of a miniature wall characterized by just those qualities he described for dry-laid stone walls built to last- a small wall nearly as wide as it was high and with successive layers of stones placed carefully over joints between stones in lower layers. But Gardner's talk ventured over more topics than how to build a wall. He told the story of stone walls in New England and how they became common in the late 18^th century. Farming became the primary occupation after the Revolutionary War, sheep requiring fencing became popular as livestock, stones had to be removed from the fields but wood was becoming scarce and earlier split rail fences and fences of tree stumps had deteriorated, and hand scythe clearing allowed for close cutting up to the stone walls. An inventory by the US Dept. of Agriculture determined that by 1871, over 250,000 miles of stone walls crisscrossed New England, a length that could go around the world ten times.

Proceeds of the silent auction support MMRG's land conservation and educational outreach work. Bidding was particularly competitive on a guided lobster trip and on a Trager massage session. A bag of dark roast coffee beans garnered the greatest number of bids with a garden primitive birdhouse running a close second.

MMRG works to conserve and connect important water resources, farm and forest lands, wildlife habitats, and recreational land in Brookfield, Farmington, Middleton, Milton, New Durham, Wakefield, and Wolfeboro. Throughout the year, MMRG offers many educational opportunities to inform all ages about the benefits of our region's natural resources. For more information, or to donate to the Branch River Conservation Area project, please visit www.mmrg.info.