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About Wild Ones |
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About Wild Ones |
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On June 8, 1990, Wild Ones Natural Landscapers Ltd was organized under Articles of Incorporation -- Non-stock Corporation Law, Chapter 181 of the Wisconsin Statutes. On April 11, 1995, Wild Ones was granted exempt status under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue code for educational purposes. Prior to 1995, the original Milwaukee Chapter of Wild Ones (Milwaukee-North) had been functioning as the administrative hub for the entire membership and there were only a few chapters. Because of membership growth, it became necessary to rethink the organizational structure in order to meet present and future needs and to enhance communication among the growing number of chapters. Summer of 1995 marked the first meeting of the new National Board and national officers. Bret Rappaport, a Chicago attorney, was elected as President, and continues to serve on the national Board. At that time, the national Board of Directors was comprised of nine elected at-large members plus each chapter president. In 2000, the By-Laws were changed to facilitate decision making; and the Board now consists of 15 elected at-large members. The Executive Committee is made up of the national officers -- President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer, Past President -- and the Executive Director. Valuable assistance comes from the Publications Editor, the Seeds for Education Director, the Librarian and the Webmaster. Except for the Executive Director and the Journal Editor, all members of the Executive Committee, Board of Directors and chair people are volunteers. Each person brings their own unique expertise to our organization for the purpose of implementing the Board’s directives and guiding chapter operations. Beginning with 2003, the Wild Ones national board approved a new name for Wild Ones. The legal name will remain Wild Ones Natural Landscapers Ltd, but for purposes of more clearly aligning our name with the mission of our organization, we will now refer to ourselves as Wild Ones: Native Plants, Natural Landscapes. On July 23, 1979 the State of Wisconsin recognized Wild Ones in honor of its 25th anniversary as an exemplary organization. Wild Ones celebrated the occasion of its 25th anniversary on August 7th and 8th with a blow-out annual meeting and conference in Madison, Wisconsin. Keynote speaker was Robert Michael Pyle, noted speaker, professor, and ecologist and award-winning author. We were fortunate to have several of the original founders celebrate with us. A complete time line of Wild Ones events can be found at chronology. The Wild Ones logo is the official registered trademark of Wild Ones: Native Plants, Natural Landscapes. The Wild Ones logo is protected by law, and may not be used by other organizations or entities without express written permission from Wild Ones.
Wild Ones national has developed this website to provide an Internet connection to our members, as well as to the rest of the world. It enables Wild Ones and its chapters to showcase their accomplishments to the rest of the Internet world, as well as promote their mission of natural landscaping with native plants. To accomplish this, each chapter has their own webpages on the Wild Ones website. To maintain a sense of standardization for specific information related to all chapters, templates have been created to enable chapters to provide specific information. These include contact information and calendar events. The chapters are encouraged to keep their contact information current and to update the calendar for their program meetings and events to keep their members and others up-to-date on their activities. As part of the service available through our website, Wild Ones is able to offer a variety of other services to our chapters and our members, i.e., members-only pages and Wild Ones E-Nets. The members-only pages are private pages and are accessible only by members. The Wild Ones E-Net is a communication tool which functions like a group e-mail. To make the sharing of information easier and more timely not only between national and chapters and members, but also between chapter boards and national, a variety of group e-mails have been created. Except for a very instances which apply to internal national functions, all e-nets are private which means only those who are included in the group e-mail can use them. A list of html pages sorted by update time is here.
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