Citation: Honorary Life Membership for Tim Wood (presented at BLPN AGM
of 19th March, 2012).
BirdLife Port Natal honours persons who have contributed significantly to
both Natal Bird Club and BirdLlife Port Natal over many years with Honorary
Life Membership.
As an ardent birder, Tim commenced his involvement with the Natal Bird
Club in 1978, and then joined the committee in 1984 arranging the indoor
meetings and club outings. Once involved in this portfolio the next step was
finances and then Treasurer also in 1984. During 1986 the South African
Ornithological Society (SAOS) instituted the first council meeting which was
attended by Tim as the Natal Bird Club representative. The next challenge for
Tim was becoming chairman in 1993. The Treasurer’s portfolio was then
confirmed as his for the following 9 years together with being the membership
secretary. Also in 1993 Tim stood as chairman of Natal Bird Club and
remained chairman until 1995.
In 1993 the inaugural Regional Projects meeting was launched and again Tim
was one of the founder members. Regional Projects was resurrected after a
period of dormancy by Tim, to get various clubs talking to each other and
Durban members to interact more closely with the Pietermaritzburg
members. Regional Projects then became the BirdLife KwaZulu-Natal Forum
at a meeting held in Vryheid in 2003.
Tim remained on Regional Council from 1998 to 2010 where he served as
Publication Committee Chairman until African Birds and Birding was
launched. He then moved on to Board of Management and represented the
region of KwaZulu-Natal.
In 2001 Tim represented the province on BirdLife South Africa (BLSA)
Council and in 1998 was instrumental in rejuvenating members of BLSA at
their first Strategic Planning meeting.
To date Tim has served on numerous BLSA committees including the Audit
Committee (Chairman), Board of Management, EXCO, Membership,
Publications, Strategic Planning meetings, Conservation Committee, Trustee
of the KwaZulu-Natal Trust (now the BLSA Trust) and has been on the present
BirdLife KwaZulu-Natal Forum since inception in 1993. His wisdom, vast and
long experience and sage advice has always been highly valued at club,
regional and national level, and he is always a useful sounding board when
difficult issues need to be resolved.
In addition to all of this, Tim is an extremely active volunteer in BirdLife Port
Natal co-ordinating CAR routes in KwaZulu-Natal and is a very committed
atlasser, having ‘pentaded’ more pentads than any other ‘pentader’ in SA –
over 1000 cards to date –quite an achievement!
Together with all this Tim also served on the steering committees for both the
1998 International Ornithological Congress and 2001 BirdLife International
Congress (both held in Durban) covering many months of preparation.