Our monthly meetings are open to the public (see sidebar for next meeting date and location) and our annual meeting in November features a speaker and advertised program. BSWA's 2008 Annual Meeting was held in the Garden Court at Green Ridge Village and approximately 40 people attended. Residents of the local community, Green Ridge Village and BSWA members and directors appreciated the program by Andy Markel and BSWA director, Vern Gauthier. Andy gave the audience a great appreciation for the strength and endurance of migratory birds and he showed slides for identification of different species. Vern spoke about the variety and number of birds along the Big Spring itself. Both presentations were excellent and BSWA extends its sincere thanks to each guest presenter for their time and informative facts!

The drawing for the original brook trout painting donated by David Weaver (above) was held as promised. Final raffle tickets were sold and accounted for and all the ticket numbers were pooled for the drawing. The winner was Wilbur Wolf who generously donated the original painting back to the BSWA organization. This original will be sent off to obtain a high-quality reproduction CD and the image will be used to create note cards, etc. (BSWA's thanks to David Weaver for allowing this reproduction of his beautiful original.)

In addition to the open meetings, the Big Spring Watershed Association attends the yearly Fountain Festival in downtown Newville. The Fountain Festival allows BSWA to greet many of its local members and to meet new friends of the watershed. We are happy to be part of Newville’s annual celebration.

One of BSWA's Directors Bill Franz shares information with visitors
at the 2007 Fountain Festival.

BSWA also sponsors educational events, or “Discovery Days”, along the Big Spring Creek. Past Discovery Days featured displays from a variety of environmental groups including the Cumberland Valley chapter of Trout Unlimited (CVTU), Pennsylvania Master Gardeners, PA Audubon and Cumberland County Rails to Trails (CVRT) along with exhibits by government agencies. Discovery Days also highlighted the area’s rich cultural, industrial and fishing history. BSWA’s scientific displays included area geology, hands-on water quality testing and a macroinvertebrate table illustrating the insect life above and below the water.

BSWA Director and past President Bill Ferris giving visitors a first hand look at some of the variety of life found in the Big Spring Creek at the Discovery Day macroinvertebrate display.

Children attending Discovery Day receive a free magnifying lens so they can examine insects.
Shown here is BSWA member Ralph Shires and sons.

The Big Spring Watershed Association is also part of the PA Department of Transportation’s Adopt-A-Highway program. Under this program, BSWA sponsors twice yearly cleanups along the beautiful Big Spring. We are always looking for volunteers to help us in our efforts. In BSWA’s Fall 2008 clean up, we gathered 12 bags of trash, 6 tires, 1 iron pipe and 10 videos. Thank you to the Walnut Bottom Boy Scout Troop, Dickinson College, Rick Yocum with his West Pennsboro truck, and everyone else who took part. Our next cleanup will be in April 25. Check back to this site for more information or contact Linda.

Some of the volunteers for the October 08 Big Spring cleanup were (left to right): Ted Watson of the Big Spring Watershed Association, Professor Tim Wahls, and students David London, Carrie Evans and Jasmine Ford of Dickinson College.