Information for anyone considering joining or rejoining CONC

Click for a PDF application form! Updated 2024 August 15 with new rates (which are unchanged for 2025)

Dues are $45 for singles, $60 for families, $15 for students, and cover September of one year through August of the next. A $20 supplement is charged if you want to receive the newsletter via snail mail. Members of other BC Nature-federated clubs may be entitled to a discount; please inquire.

There are several ways to submit your membership application.

The first is to email your completed application to membership@okanagannature.org. Pay dues by e-transfer to membership@okanagannature.org. When you create the e-transfer, the process will ask for “additional: information”; please note your full name(s) in the field for providing additional information.

The second is to bring your completed membership application and dues to one of our monthly meetings.

The third way is to send your membership application and dues to:

P.O. Box 21128
Orchard Park P.O.
Kelowna, BC
V1Y 9N8

The fourth way is to bring your completed membership application and dues to one of our activities and give it to a member of the executive.

Advantages of Membership

Membership brings you our monthly newsletter (Central Okanagan Naturalist), a subscription to the quarterly BCnature from BC Nature (the Federation of BC Naturalists), and participation in club activities.

Note that as a member of CONC, you are also a member of BC Nature. In addition to receiving the BCnature magazine, this entitles you to receive email updates on BC Nature activities and to attend BC Nature’s summer camps and annual and fall general meetings. Perhaps most importantly, it provides insurance coverage if you have an accident while participating in CONC’s activities.

Activities

If you wish to participate in club activities (including hiking (Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday) , birding, cycling, snowshoeing, botanizing, and conservation), please first read the activity policy. Then look at the pages for your preferred activity.

You should be aware that activities involve some level of risk. Please read the risk assessment and mitigation policy or its summary.

If you are a club member, you have already signed a waiver. If you are a visitor, you will be required to sign this waiver before participating in the activity. The activity leader will provide the waiver for you.

Archive of CONC activities

Past-president Douglas Graham with the assistance of past-Librarian Jen Matthews has created a digital archive of many of CONC’s publications. This archive includes:

• Newsletters: a scattering of older newsletters from the 1980s and every newsletter from 2021 till the present
• Board minutes: essentially complete from 2021 till the present
• Publications: various CONC-sponsored reports notably including the interesting history of CONC from 1962-2000: “Tracks, Trails, and Naturalists’ Tales”
• Procedures: the most recent copy of our Procedures (which lays out in detail how the club functions), including the Bylaws
• AGMs: all documents from 2020 till the present

This archive is available at https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1QLgM57U_-CAhO5Y1laqMXRHhN9_8vzLl

Carpooling

When going on activities, we make a contribution to the driver following the trip to cover their costs; the suggested contribution is $0.15/km. After doing some rounding to keep it simple, we recommend the following  contributions for each passenger, subject to future change:

<=20 km: $3
21-<30 km: $4
30-<35 km: $5
35-<45 km: $6
45-<60 km: $8
60-<85 km: $10
85-<120 km: $15
120-<150 km: $20
150-<185 km: $25
185-<220 km: $30
220-<250 km: $35
250-<285 km: $40

Drivers may accept less if they choose.

The larger distances are usually seen only for summer camps and second-Saturday birding trips.

Contact information for the executive. Contact the CONC webmaster. For general questions, use this link.

Last update: 2025 08 31