Great Expectations; A Mixed Bag

By Bruce Ross, Executive Director bruceross@wi.rr.com

This article originally appeared in Wisconsin Waterfowl Association’s January, 2021 Newsletter edition.

It’s way too early to determine whether my new dog Tack will live up to my “best dog ever” expectations.  It’s a pretty high bar.  In the few moments when I’m honest with myself, I expect he’ll prove to be a mixed bag of good and bad.

But so far, one month into his tenure, he’s shown me just about everything that I would want to see: a working nose, retrieving desire, some instinctual pointing traits, boldness, a willingness to please.  Although he is proving stubborn about consistently peeing outside.  And the sharpness of his teeth are living up to his name – as my wife’s daily pierced ankles demonstrate.

You would have had to hibernate through 2020 to call it “best year ever”; maybe best roller coaster ride ever would better describe it.

Starting with high hopes to grow our impact through a more effective committee structure, and buoyed by early event results in our Northern Wetlands and  Appleton/Valley chapters, we quickly plunged into survival mode as subsequent events cancelled or were postponed. This starkly revealed our over-dependence on the event fundraising system. But with some creativity, we found other sources of revenue to sustain our operations, and tightened belts where needed.  Member generosity and support in this moment of need was touching, and absolutely critical.  We remain not only viable as an organization, but financially better prepared for an uncertain 2021.

Working at home – or in some instances, NOT working but at home – people raised their hands to do more for the state’s waterfowlers.  New volunteer roles were developed and will dramatically expand WWA’s offerings in habitat restorations, policy advocacy, and waterfowler education in the year ahead.  At the same time, we lost some dear WWA friends whose absences will create holes in our organization no less than the ones in our hearts.

Our communications capability has grown – WWA was featured in many print and electronic media, and social media and corporate marketing capacity is at the highest levels ever.  Our largest ever bi-annual survey, completed in February, remains an important source of state waterfowling perspective and guides WWA’s efforts in Madison. We met with more legislators, both virtually and in-person, than in recent memory to promote waterfowler interests in Madison policy-making.  This included encouraging the adoption of an open water zone structure that should better serve the diversity of state waterfowling offerings.  As a result of these expanded legislative and regulatory contacts, WWA took the step to become a registered lobbying organization for the first time in our history.

We made a leap of another kind, expanding our annual meeting – at Lambeau Field – to educate members and non-members in all sorts of current waterfowling issues.  This experience set the stage for organizing a diverse team to host a waterfowling extravaganza in 2021.  But despite unprecedented interest in waterfowling this year, our planned best NexGen education year was thwarted when state-cancellation of learn-to-hunts and mentoring restrictions were imposed.

Cancelled events put some fragile chapters out of business entirely; rebuilding chapter bench strength is an important challenge for WWA in the years ahead. But events that were held FAR exceeded expectations in attendance, financial results, and member fulfillment.

Our habitat work was also impacted by 2020’s unique challenges.  Required permitting was slow to materialize from all levels of government and delayed projects starts, but now has reached full capacity and is dependent only – as in all years – on the weather.  Our D-I-Y volunteer habitat work was similarly slowed as social distancing impacted our ability to conduct AWA projects on state-owned lands.  Nevertheless, the endangered black tern has new hope around the state thanks to chapter innovations in Rome Pond to create nesting habitat.  New grants and expanded volunteer opportunities promise even greater habitat work in 2021.

Whew!   Like putting a band-aid on a dog piercing, by keeping your eye on the prize in difficult times, you may get to the “best ever….” Be it new retriever or WWA.