THE NEXT GENERAL MEETING, REMEMBER THE DATE: THURSDAY JUNE 5TH, 7:30 PM, AT THE CLUB HOUSE, LINCOLN PARK ROAD, IN DERBY TOWNSHIP. 

The guest speaker for our June general meeting will be a representative from the Clean Water Festival. This should be very informative.

There will also be Hot Dogs and Licensed Beverages.

New Members!! 

The SSA welcomes the following new members:

• Mark Rehmann Adult
• Jacob Green Student

DATES AND OTHER THINGS TO REMEMBER!
 

Our upcoming June meeting will be the last until September. Needless to say, most of us will appreciate our summer activities, and in the case of many of us "oldies", our inactivities.

Some members will be very busy. Dan Laxton will be organizing and overseeing the annual beef barbeque, as well as the corn roast. Bill Beamish will be greasing the wheels to facilitate an extremely busy shotgun sports schedule. Dave Arnold can hardly keep up with all the carpentry requests. Mary Stephenson and her beautiful daughters are being run off their feet keeping our junior members active, interested, and coming back for more. Ken Cowtan will be continuing
his very valuable and most appreciated duties, as he makes sure our buildings and grounds are both in good shape and attractive. Gerry Powers and Lorne Smith will be on the go continuously monitoring the SSA's renowned bluebird program. Of course, the whole Derby committee is getting up a real head of steam as they prepare to bring on another great Salmon Spectacular.

The foregoing are just some of the many programs and activities that will keep so many of our members on the hop throughout the hot summer months. So, to those who give the club so much, we thank you. It is our volunteers, people like you, who make our club :what it is...the #1 conservation club in the province.

So, fellow sportsmen, we'll get together again in September when the weather is cooler, ducks and geese are flying, and the shot-guns come out again. Until then, everyone have a great summer.

Blake Smith, President.
 

The juniors have been very busy this past month with pitch-in day, fish stocking, tree planting and planning future activities.

Coming up is the campout and kids fishing day. This will take place on July 4th, 5th and 6th please sign up as we would like to know how many people are going to be there. 

We are also planning to have one night in June, July, and August for shooting archery and fishing.
Our past co-chair, Laura, is working for the Get Outdoors Program this summer at the OFAH headquarters in Peterborough. This just goes to show what opportunities can come out of being a junior member of the SSA. Also, many of our activities are counted towards mandatory volunteer hours in high school. Students can get their hours while having fun and working for a great cause. 

Sarah Stephenson, Chairperson
Youth Activities Program
 

All of our salmon have been clipped, left pectoral and adipos fin, under contract and are now swimming free range in the Sydenham river thanks to the efforts of our junior and adult volunteers. Approximately 189,000 were released into Harrison Park, where as Coy says, there are not as many cormorants.
The Bruce Peninsula Sportsman Club came down and picked up about 18,400 of our salmon to release into the Oxyden creek:. There has always been a good history of cooperation between our two clubs.

Our rainbow eggs are eyeing up and the browns are taking on more feed. Fred and Coy met with the Grey County roads people and have worked out a plan to help solve the problem of silt and gravel been washed down into our hatchery
water system.

As a follow up to our last news Letter and again thanks in a large part to our Juniors 1200 trees were planted at the former dump site. Hopefully this summer will not be as dry as last year. 
.
Mike Prevost 
F.A.C. Chairman
 

The planting of trees and shrubs to promote wildlife, as well as a diversified forest community, is pretty well completed for 2003. Summer months will be devoted to maintenance, such as watching for insect damage, drought, etc. We have purchased a relatively cheap, used trailer/water tank combo, to be ready in case this year is as hot and dry as 2002.

Some of you may have noticed a rather odd pattern of lawn mowing at the Maher building. Last year, it was quite apparent that some wildlife, cottontails in particular, exhibited a decided preference for longer grass. So, this year, for appearances sake, we mowed the front section clean. We then left the back section in uncut patches with interconnecting pathways. The carpentry shop (white building) yard area is a Demonstration Wildlife Management Area, and is a work in very preliminary progress, designed to promote wildlife in a low maintenance, reasonably attractive setting. It is set up to show that there can be an alternative to the proliferation of mowed, sterilized green deserts that pass for lawns in our chemical society. It is too early yet to judge what this will eventually look like. It should start to show what it is going to turn into around 2010. This sort of program is not for those with a short attention span...it does take time.

Blake Smith,
Co-Chair, Forestry and Wildlife
Advisory Committee.

Labrador Retriever pups. C.K.C. registered, home raised, excellent temperament, from hunt test and field trial champion lines. Ready to go end of June.

Call Dan Laxton 794 4425