To celebrate our 40th Anniversary, we are hosting three Annual Meetings throughout the James River watershed this year.img_1282

Our Wiliamsburg Annual Meeting was held on October 6 at The Williamsburg Winery in Williamsburg and featured a viewing of the film Beautiful Swimmers Revisited.

The film’s narrator, Tom Horton spoke on the changes witnessed to the Chesapeake Bay Crab industry over the last 40 years. Horton is a retired environmental journalist for the Baltimore Sun who now teaches nature writing at Salisbury University. Based on the 1976 book Beautiful Swimmers, the documentary focuses on the Chesapeake Bay, its blue crab population and the fisheries that revolve around them.  Since the 1970’s, science and its testing methods has evolved to further understand the behaviors of blue crabs and the ecology of the bay.

img_1277Bill Street, the James River Association’s CEO, highlighted improvements that have occurred for the James since the organization was founded in 1976. Despite the progress that has been made over the last 40 years, there is still much work to be done.  Bill also briefly reviewed the James River Association’s 10 year plan.

Our next Annual Meeting  will be held in Lynchburg at the Craddock-Terry Hotel on October 13. Guest speaker, Richard Louv, will be speaking during our program via Skype on the “Nature-Deficit Disorder” affecting many of today’s youth. He will be followed by a local educator and a student sharing their experiences from James River environmental education programs.  Purchase tickets online here.