[board] Looking forward to the Zoom Board Meeting.

[Robert MacKimmie]

Thanks to all of you for stepping up, and allowing our modest organization
to continue on its journey. I have been attending the Marin Bee group for
twenty years, and have witnessed its many iterations. Twenty years ago,
beekeeping everywhere was experiencing new and surprising growth, mostly
due to bees being in the news with Colony Collapse Disorder, CCD. The great
unwashed public somehow decided that they should help bees by keeping a
hive in their backyard. The deceptive myth was that beekeeping was easy,
and as we all found out, it's SO EASY.

For twenty years, we have been trying to figure out how to keep bees
alive, and while we have learned much, we have also had many more
bee ailments that globalization has foisted upon us. Hive beetle,
Africanized bee, EFB, Deformed Wing Virus-B existed twenty years ago, but
now they impact us daily.

Twenty years ago, I was told that there was no bee disease in Marin, that
there was no need of treatments. It took a decade before we could actually
talk about diseases openly in the group. There was little education about
how to keep bees alive, beyond the research offered by our many remarkable
speakers.

>From the first time I sat in an all day workshop with Randy Oliver in 1998,
scientific method and accurate delivery of highly tested, proven methods
has been primary how I share information about beekeeping. What is taught
regarding what I know about bees is much more important than what I think
about bees or beekeeping. My method is to learn beekeeping methods through
lecture, discussion, YouTube, or reading, then test the methods on a number
of my hives, while comparing results against control hives. Only then will
I speak about and share those proven methods.

For all these reasons, I am looking forward to the opportunity we currently
share, where we have a strong population of recent beekeepers. It is much
easier to share accurate information about effective beekeeping methods,
even to a total greenhorn, rather than to 'unteach' incorrect information.
Through monthly meetings, Hive Dives, Zoom Classes, and in person
trainings, I expect that we will be able to bring a comprehensive
understanding of solid beekeeping basics to all those who attend, and apply
themselves. I have many times expressed that within a year's time, we can
train complete newbees to be comprehensive early beekeepers who know how to
keep their hives alive, healthy and productive. Beyond that core
comprehensive level of knowledge, we will also provide methods and special
interest projects that intermediate and advanced beekeepers need for growth.

The Marin Bee group is a big tent, and it can provide a myriad of
initiatives. If Board members have ambitions for the group, I expect that
those interested people will talk about those projects, plan them, and then
deliver the efforts to make those agenda come to fruition. We have all
stood up to help the organization to survive, function, and prosper, for
the membership, and for the people who attend the meetings. At the same
time, like all information academies, we also need to project what people
need to know next, to provide the next steps for people as they evolve into
the more advanced understandings that comprehensive beekeeping requires. As
a group, we also have the opportunity provided by our unique moment in
beekeeping's evolving time, where we can undertake simple initiatives which
will move the current reality of beekeeping forward, making marked progress
in the state of beekeeping, where making genetic improvements to the stocks
we run a huge advantage to the average beekeeper. As a finite bee
community, we can make a vast difference. Truthfully, it takes a community
to make change.

All that is my understanding, and my ambition in standing to assume the
President's role. There is a vast amount of work to be accomplished, and we
are gifted to have the opportunity. I look forward to working with each of
you to accomplish great things, and I appreciate that each of you have been
willing to participate.


If I can ask a favor. If each of you would take five minutes to write down
a very brief recap, listing 3-5 bullet points about what you understand to
be the most primary tasks required of your position right now, and also 3-5
bullet points defining your understanding of the primary goals and
objectives that your position faces for the year. Be brief. No responses
are incorrect. We just need a common vision of where we are, and where we
are going, and I am curious about what you see.

Many thanks,
robert
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