WILD

So we had a great adventure up around the Hoyt Arboretum and the magnolia tree grove. The trees had progressed a little from our last visit there -- but there still is a wonderful amount of blossoms to come!

A great group of us from NCCDC ventured up amidst the rain and clouds to dash around the magnolia grove for a treasure hunt, followed by a hike along the muddied Wildwood trail down to the playground down by the Rose garden.

The kids had a blast searching amidst the trees for the "magic yellow grass" around the trees which held a treasure. Look closely now! 

 Even someone else out for a stroll with her father managed to find one and take one home!

After this the kids tore off down the muds of Wildwood, past the Japanese Gardens, past the trilliums in full bloom and down to a picnic beside the playground. A great day for Portland's Young Adventurers!

Posted by ronanmc at 08:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

In preparation for our planned treasure hunt next week (see our calendar for details), I took a visit to check on our old friends the magnolia trees up at the Arboretum in Washington Park.

And they are just ready to come out in full bloom (should be a fun adventure):

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OK -- so now we have a website that is at least somewhat functional (I'll do some stuff with the donate links later on, I promise).. at least now I can start to focus on other areas of setting this up.

So where to form here?

At this point there are three main areas of focus:

1. Get the word out there and start planning adventures. Keep an eye on our calendar for upcoming events -- although at this early stage (embryonic in fact), I'd imagine a lot of our early events will be kept to invitation only because of the overwhelming demand.
   There is, also, a little issue of insurance -- which is expensive. That leads me right to bullet number two.
2. Start meeting with folks in the Portland business and non-profit community who can maybe help me with contacts and potentially help me identify where I can raise some initial funding to help get WILD to the next stage. Funding would be used for legal fees, marketing and branding, equipment and, of course, insurance.
3. I need to start working on grants too.

Watch out world -- here comes WILD!

Posted by ronanmc at 03:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

WILD is a fledgling non-profit that I am trying to start here in Portland - a type of Outdoor Adventure organization for kids and families here in Portland.

Hopefully, one day, we'll touch many different parts of the globe --- but for now we are looking at focusing on the grassroots and hoping to make a difference in Portland, Oregon.

What is WILD?
Wildlife Introductions for Learning and Development (WILD) will try to reach out and inspire the discovery of the wild for families through play and adventures outside.

Why?
I see a confluence of many positive and many frightening aspects of life -- and I really believe efforts like WILD can help. What are these aspects?

• The concept of Nature-Deficit Disorder -- and how kids are growing less familiar with our natural surrondings
• No Child Left Behind is forcing school systems to teach to standardized tests and a rigid and regimented curriculum
• Playtime has become a misnomer -- we ferry our kids from one activity to the next in the belief that all these structured activities are our only options
• Obesity is on a dramatic increase
• The landscape of childhood has shrunk and we are raising our kids under a virtual house arrest (compare the free reign you had versus what kids get today -- we barely let them go around the block)
• Our kids are intellectually aware of environmental issues -- but they are being denied the opportunity of discovering their local wilderness

But there are many great efforts underway to try and tackle this (more in a later post) -- and I hope WILD can become one of them.

Posted by ronanmc at 10:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)