Last month we shared that Dan Wisniewski and Mary Ann Doll (pictured below) were to be honored by our state council in February. We had a write-up on Dan’s Lifetime Achievement Award last month.

This month it’s Mary Ann’s turn to shine! Here is a lightly condensed version of Mary Ann’s nomination:

Mary Ann has made two extraordinarily important contributions to SWTU.

CHAPTER OPERATIONS – Mary Ann has made key contributions to the ongoing management and key activities of the Chapter.  She has served as our Vice President for the last two years.  In taking on that office, she has worked to improve the service we receive from the establishment that hosts our membership meetings   This means we have more comfortable meetings and have not had to search for a new venue.  She has also worked hard to grace us with quality speakers of varied backgrounds for our monthly speakers, which has increased attendance and involvement.

As Vice President, Mary Ann has continued the work she began as a member and then Board Member.  Our two annual fundraisers are the Icebreaker and the Larry Meicher March Madness Auction. For both, Mary Ann is the reliable and imaginative behind-the-scenes volunteer.  She arranges the rooms, stages the raffle prizes, helps display the auction items, and makes sure other volunteers have the space and supplies they need.  She is a key person in making sure that each event has run as efficiently as possible.  In those often-hectic moments before and during these events, she is a source of calm and good cheer.

Mary Ann attends just about all of our workdays and lugs as much brush as anyone.  For several of those, until she had some of us better trained, she also made sure we had coffee and adequate carbs, often in the form of doughnuts.  She helps make the workdays fun as well as productive.

Mary Ann is also one of our most astute Board Members with a knack for a) an extremely well-timed question and b) a suggestion for improving long-time practices and procedures.

WELCOMING – National TU, State Council, our Chapter and many others endlessly discuss how to make TU welcome to more members … especially younger, more diverse and female members.  None of that works unless the Chapter activities are genuinely friendly and welcoming.  Mary Ann relentlessly devotes herself to making sure that SWTU events are always respectful, friendly and that everyone feels welcome.

At membership meetings, she introduces herself to anyone attending for the first time and reminds all the Board Members to do the same.  She makes sure that all new members receive some flies and are introduced at the meeting.  At any event, Mary Ann seeks out new folks, talks with them and introduces them to members with whom they might share an interest.  She personifies the recognition that TU must be about people as much as it is about trout and habitat.

Most of us probably associate the Gold Net with the joy of catching fish (which Mary Ann does as avidly as any other TU member) but her activities on behalf of SWTU are the Gold Net that has helped us land lots of new and more diverse members.  And, thanks again to her, they’re not swimming away but becoming among our most fun and energetic participants.

Big congrats to Mary Ann and Dan!