Saturday February 4: Couchiching Conservancy AGM

Carthew Bay Nature Reserve, donated by John and Betty McCulloch in 2002.

From Couchiching Conservancy

Annual General Meeting
Sat, February 4th

Hawkridge Golf & Country Club – map
1151 Hurlwood Lane, Orillia, ON L3V 6K8

1:30 pm – doors open
2:00 pm – meeting begins
4:00 pm – adjourned

Pre-reading materials available at this link 

2017 Annual General Meeting Agenda
Slate of candidates for the Board of Directors
2016 Annual Report
Audited Financial Report
Minutes of 2016 Annual General Meeting

Guest Speaker: Steve Burrows, an award-winning Canadian mystery writer, journalist, and avid birder. Steve Burrows’s life-long interest in birds and nature began in the urban parks around his childhood home in Birmingham, UK. Steve’s family later moved to Canada, where he became a high-school teacher and met his wife, Resa.

After relocating to Hong Kong, Steve became a contributing field editor with Asian Geographic, and he and Resa travelled to destinations including Sri Lanka, Vietnam and Papua New Guinea, to produce articles on everything from seahorses to birdwing butterflies.

On their return to Canada, Steve began writing fiction. His first novel in the Birder Murder series, A Siege of Bitterns, was a Globe & Mail Top 100 Books of the year selection, and won the 2015 Crime Writers of Canada award for Best First Novel. His most recent novel, A Cast of Falcons, made the CBC Canadian bestsellers list, and was a Kobo selection as one of the books of the year by a Canadian author. The fourth birder murder, A Shimmer of Hummingbirds, will be published in March, 2017.

From Birder to Birder Murder

While the road from non-fiction to fiction is one that many writers have taken, the one from birder to murder mystery writer is less well-travelled.

This presentation will take a light-hearted look at the impact birders and non-birders alike have had on Steve Burrows’s development from writing non-fiction pieces for newspapers and magazines to writing his birder murder mysteries. Steve will also look at how birder and non-birders continue to play a part in both his world view and his novels.