Hello birders, As birding increases in popularity, it has become clear that we need a more organized way to coordinate some rare bird viewing opportunities. Until now, this has been handled by independent birders who are happy to share their time and are keen to help people see rare birds that are in difficult settings. This has generally worked well but a few birds have fallen through the cracks and some observations have not gone as smoothly as hoped. The Ontario Field Ornithologists (OFO) have been working for the past few months on an idea for a Rare Bird Ambassador program to coordinate rare bird viewing. The program will be open for anyone interested in helping (including non-members). Because we want to get this right, we are providing the draft document for feedback from Ontario birders before we officially launch it on our website and create the starting list of ambassadors. Note that we are not asking for ambassadors yet; at this stage we are asking for feedback about the draft document. If you are interested, please read it over <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kP7VEaK7HQlpI2d-8HhxfyMBkhsAxyp-/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=101957059728162906174&rtpof=true&sd=true> and send any feedback to us <ambassadors@ofo.ca> by January 16th. The main goals of the program are to: 1. Share rare bird sightings from sensitive locations or sensitive species in a way that both protects the birds and the local landowners while casting a positive light on the Ontario Birding community. 2. Create a group that can work together to brainstorm effective ways to view these rare birds. 3. Create a group of ambassadors that is large enough to ensure local people are available to assess and coordinate viewing of these rare birds anywhere in the province on short notice. 4. Ensure that access to rare birds is fair and handled in a transparent manner. We will incorporate suggestions into the final document and launch this program before the end of January. We look forward to hearing your thoughts, Lynne Freeman on behalf of the OFO Board -- Lynne Freeman (she/her/hers) lynnef.to@gmail.com "Be bold, be brave, be amazing" Simon de Pury - Work of Art