Speakers & Presentations

The MVOC meets the first Tuesday of each month at 6:30 PM at Wegerzyn Garden MetroPark, located at 1301 E. Siebenthaler Avenue, Dayton, Ohio 45414.  Come early and enjoy catching up with other members before the business meeting! Look for us in the basement meeting room of the Wegerzyn Center building. Google Map Link

Meetings normally consist of a business meeting where we discuss past activities and upcoming events. This is followed by a program which might feature a guest speaker, or a slide presentation of past activities. Meetings are open to the public and guests are encouraged to attend.  If you wish to attend an outdoor event, you MUST contact the leader of the event prior to departure.

Are You Interested In Giving A Presentation At An MVOC Meeting? MVOC encourages you to volunteer to give a presentation at an MVOC meeting on the topic of your choice. Any relevant outdoor related presentation is welcome. If you are interested please contact .

Tuesday, September 7, 2010 - 6:30 pm

"Kayaking through the Grand Canyon"

Speaker: Worldwide Kayaker Amy Dingle

Imagine waves that take seven strokes to climb, boulders the size of 4-story buildings and a 6-foot kayak battling through 227 miles of the Colorado River. Amy Dingle will share the experiences of a 21-day expedition and how the river has carved a lifetime of memories.

Amy Dingle is a former National Team Member for the USA Canoe and Kayak Team and has over 23 years of kayaking experience. She is an American Canoe Association Instructor for Coastal and Whitewater Kayaking and has been teaching people to paddle since 1989. She has taken trips all over the world from Europe to Costa Rica and her next expedition is preparing to paddle the Grand Canyon. She is currently an Outdoor Recreation Coordinator for Five Rivers MetroParks and focuses on many outdoor adventures and activities but has a concentration in teaching paddle-sports.

Tuesday, August 3, 2010 - 6:30 pm

"My Bike Trails, A Community Cycling Website"

Speaker: John Halley

John Halley is co-founder and owner of My Bike Trails LLC, a community cycling website displaying interactive innovative trail maps. John was previously a leading marketer of wind and renewable energy, and founding member of Community Energy, Inc. (CEI) until its sale in 2007. John is a former Greenpeace canvasser and ran for Congress for a third party in 1996. He has a BA in Psychology from the University of Cincinnati, and nearly finished a MA in Environmental Leadership at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. John enjoys travel and language, and spent 9 months in Central America, 6 months in Europe, and 9 months in the Pacific Northwest.

In 2008, John Halley and application designer, Bill Otto, created an innovative interactive trail map website using Google-based Maps, color-coded GPS files and geo-coded map markers, and digital pictures and video to provide riders accurate media-rich trail info (parking, parks, restrooms, water, picnic area, etc.) and trail-side businesses (bike shops, restaurants, hotels, B&Bs, camping, etc.). So far they have mapped all the trails from Cincinnati-Dayton-Columbus-Indianapolis (including most mountain bike trails), collecting handle bar-mounted digital video (some head cam), pictures, and GPS data.

The maps are free to the public, and My Bike Trails collects revenue through low-cost trail-side businesses ads, and sharing the maps with other websites through an html i-frame (MapShare). MBT offers businesses a locational Map Ad showing their business. Business customers can choose one to 10 digital images and add their own descriptions, and include video and other services and links ranging from $125 - $500 a year. Ads are visible on the MBT website www.mybiketrails.com/ and ALL the Map Shares. All together, MBT has had nearly 100,000 map views in its first year, and achieved high ranks from Google and Yahoo.

The Outdoor Club enjoyed our yearly picnic in July

Tuesday, June 1, 2010 - 6:30 pm

"Grand, Gloomy and Peculiar: Stephen Bishop at Mammoth Cave"

Speaker: Roger Brucker

Hear about the adventures of lifetime cave explorer and author Roger Brucker of Beavercreek and his recent book Grand, Gloomy and Peculiar: Stephen Bishop at Mammoth Cave. Since the age of four, when he was scolded for climbing a fence and exploring the rock formations beyond it, Roger Brucker has been exploring the unknown in the world underground. He had a very early interest in caves and visited his first one at Put-in-Bay, Ohio at age five. When he was eight his mother took him on an all day trip to Mammoth Cave and it was then that he got hooked on a life of caving. As a young man he spent years exploring Mammoth Cave and the caves nearby and co-authored with long-time caving friend Richard Watson, The Longest Cave, about the exploration of Mammoth Cave. Since then he has co-authored The Caves Beyond and Beyond Mammoth Cave: A Tale of Obsession in the World's Longest Cave. Roger has written two books of his own. Trapped! The Story of Floyd Collins is about a man who was tragically trapped and died in Mammoth Cave. His most recent historical novel, published in 2009, Grand, Gloomy and Peculiar: Stephen Bishop at Mammoth Cave, is about a slave who gained fame as a guide and explorer at Mammoth Cave. Brucker also helped establish the Cave Research Foundation (CRF) which still studies caves in our national parks and around the world. He is also an avid bicycle enthusiast, kite flyer, dog trainer and draws cartoons and illustrations for a variety of publications. Copies of his books will be available for purchase and autographing.

Roger Brucker, Author - Cave Explorer

 Tuesday, May 4, 2010 - 6:30 pm

"Visual Awareness and the Art of Seeing in Photography"
A program about how to improve your photographic skills on your outdoor adventures whether novice or advanced.

Speaker: Terrence W. Cavanaugh, Photographer

For Cincinnati native, Terrence W. Cavanaugh,
"Photography is the means of visual expression to communicate, educate and share with others art, beauty and nature."

A graduate of the University of Cincinnati in Marketing and Business Administration, Mr. Cavanaugh has been involved with photography since 1980, when one day, an encounter with a client made him realize his love for art. This lead him to purchase a "35mm camera" and a class at the Cincinnati Arts Consortium where he met his mentor Kazik Pazovski, a well know artist and photographer among the artist in Mount Adams area of Cincinnati. He quickly became one of Kazik's pupils and later grew to be his assistant at Pazovski's School of Photography. He also began student teaching at this time. He next earned a degree in photography from The Ohio Institute of Photography in Dayton, Ohio. Upon graduation, he entered the field of studio photography as a commercial advertising photographer and assistant.

Over the past 27 years, in addition to studio assignments, Terrence has been an associate and teacher of photography through Sinclair College,
the University of Cincinnati adult education program (Anderson High School), Five Rivers Metro Parks, the Cincinnati Nature Center and the
Cincinnati Women's Club. Many of his images have been published both nationally and international through area advertising agencies. He has
won numerous photography awards, and in 2008 he was honored as Photographer of the Year by the Focus Photo Club of Dayton, Ohio.

Terrence maintains an active photography schedule addressing groups and organizations as an instructor and guest lecturer. He is often
called upon to be a competition judge for tri-state photo clubs, and to lead photography seminars and field trips in Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky.

Photography classes and field trips can be arranged for groups or on an individual basis.
Contacts........Phone: 1-937-294-9288 or Email: lmm1378@sbcglobal.net

Clients:
The National Cash Register Co.
General Motors Corp.
The Berry Company
Willis Case Harwood Advertising
National City Bank
Penny Olman Neiman Advertising
Henney & Associates Advertising
Tomart Publishing
Kimberly Clark Paper Corp.
Washington-Church Associates
County-Wide Directories Inc.
The Duriron Company Inc.
The Dayton Chamber of Commerce

April 6, 2010 - 6:30 pm

"LIVING SIMPLE AND GREEN – A Personal Journey"

Speaker: Wendy Aker, President, Preble County Citizens for Living Green (PCCGL)

Wendy (center) will lead an interactive and hopefully thought-provoking and fun exchange to encourage others to begin rethinking how we can change our ways of interacting with our environment. Through examples, stories and stats, she will show how by living more simple and green we not only help our earth, but also become healthier and save money doing so. She hopes to change today’s mindset of get, use and discard to rethink, reduce, reuse and recycle.

PCCGL was established in 2009 to raise awareness, educate, encourage and support its members and the community of the need and means to live more green and earth-friendly and ensure a safer and cleaner environment now and in the future.

The group is marking its second year and the 40th anniversary of Earth Day by having educational displays at a number of community events in addition to planning a wide variety of environmental presentations, movies, field trips and other special events throughout the year. PCCGL hopes to host an Earth Dinner after the summer harvest to celebrate our connection to food, farming and the earth.

March 2, 2010 - 6:30 pm

"The Life of a Buckeye Trail Section Supervisor"

Speaker: Byron Guy

Meet Byron Guy, volunteer supervisor for the Troy section of Ohio's Buckeye Trail, which for him is 1,444 miles of the most scenic and historical trail anywhere in the nation. Byron is also Co-Section Supervisor for the Old Man's Cave section in southeast Ohio as well as the maintainer for the Grandma Gatewood National Recreational Trail. He is in charge of 24 individual maintainers that have adopted smaller portions of the trail in each of these sections. Mr. Guy will share his experiences hiking and working on the Buckeye Trail, how he got involved as a volunteer and how anyone can become a BTA volunteer. He will also tell some history of the Buckeye Trail and highlights of the Troy section that runs from the Wright Brothers' Memorial in Greene County through Dayton and on to the Lockington Locks near Piqua in Miami County. He'll also explain how to use the Buckeye Trail website to find information like trail alerts and special trail features.