Tri-State Herpetological Society Meeting: January 6, 2009

www.TriStateHerp.com has been updated to include all details about the upcoming meeting.

Date & Time: Tuesday January 6, 2009. 700 to 900 pm
Location: Pappy’s BBQ & more restaurant in Wildwood, GA. 706.820.1060

Management has offered to provide free drinks to members who order food.
Directions: from interstate 24 (east or west) take exit 169 and turn right. The restaurant is less than 1 mile on the left, just past the Pilot truck stop, across the street from the Fast Food & Fuel truck stop.

Topic of discussion: local copperheads of the tri-state area. (Sub-species and variations) And any other topic members bring up.

Cost: There is no cost for the meeting, as always. However, please come hungry to support our hosting sponsor.

Door prizes: There will be a drawing for some door prizes. Sponsored by Get Tanked Pets in Rossville, GA. URL: www.GetTankedPets.com Phone: 706.858.3474 and Pet Addicts Pets in Huntsville, AL URL: www.pet-addicts.com phone: 256.256.4494

Miscellaneous: we are going to be in a new meeting location. Pappy’s is happy to be providing us a meeting location. Everyone that can, please try to order something to support them. It’s unbelievably hard to find someone willing to work with us, due to the nature of our hobby. Pappy’s has a full service restaurant (BBQ, pizza, and more.) I have put their menu on the website. They also have a convenience store and game room. For those that smoke, smoking is allowed in the game room and there is an outdoor patio with tables and chairs. If anyone wishes to bring animals, be sure they are in a proper transport cage. We are a reptile club, and reptiles will be welcome, but we do not want to shock any member of the general public that may be there. Wildwood is very close to the center of the tri-state area. It’s a perfect location for the TSHS. It’s only about 7 or 8 minutes from downtown Chattanooga. Wildwood is known for having the best gas prices in the area, so wait to fuel up there.

Please pass this information on to anyone in our area that has an interest in reptiles. Thanks

Correction: The phone number for Pet Addicts, who is helping to sponsor the door prizes should be 256.852.4494. Thank you

It is a little less then 2 weeks till our next meeting. Just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and remind everyone the meeting will be January 6, 2009 from 700 to 900 pm at Pappy's BBQ in Wildwood, GA. Seems this meeting date fell on the night before many of our local schools reconvene for 09. That is unfortunate, but I still anticipate a good crowd. We have members confirmed to be coming from as far away as Birmingham, AL, Knoxville, TN, and Atlanta, GA.

Updates:
We now have an on-line membership application on www.TriStateHerp.com Those that have not already, please fill this out when you have time. Paper applications will be available for new members at the meeting also.
E & D Rattery has confirmed to attend. Anyone wishing to order feeder mice and/or rats to pick up at the meeting, please contact them in advance. deniwalk7@aol.com or 706.375.8190.
Both of our sponsoring pet shops have confirmed. Anyone wishing to pre-order anything, please contact them. www.gettankedpets.com or www.pet-addicts.com

Location:
A detailed map and pictures of the meeting spot are available at www.TriStateHerp.com. We will be meeting at Pappy's BBQ in Wildwood, GA. 706 820 1060. From Interstate 24 east or west, take exit 169 and turn right. Pappy's will be on your left in less then a mile. I have also uploaded a menu for the food at Pappy's. Everyone that can, try to come hungry in order to help support our sponsor location.

Topic:
We will be discussing the copperheads of our region. Please prepare anything you would like to present and let me know in advance. Also prepare any questions you may have on the topic. Several examples of our local variations will be on hand to view.

Announcements:
We will have a vast array for speakers during the 2009 meeting schedule. Confirmed this far are Rico Walder, herpetologist from the Tennessee Aquarium and Dr. Chris Moore, MD, specialist in out door medicine. We are also talking with a recent UTC Graduate from the Masters Program, who completed his thesis on the TN River turtles.

As always, pass on this information to anyone you know from the area that has an interest in reptiles. We are happy to have as many people attend as possible. We range in age from about 12 years old to about 80 years old. We range in education from grade school and drop out all the way up to PHD. We range in experience from about 60 years of studying reptiles up to member who have never kept or studied anything and are looking for information on their first.

Tri-State Herpetological Society
www.TriStateHerp.com Info@TriStateHerp.com $Click to support the efforts of the TSHS$

Ladies and gentlemen, we are exactly one week away from our next bimonthly meeting. I hope everyone can make it. Any questions, please email, text, or call us. Please get the word out to anyone you know that has an interest in reptiles. All details are available at www.TriStateHerp.com

Date & Time: Tuesday January 6, 2009. 700pm to 900pm

Location: Pappy's BBQ in Wildwood, GA. Interstate 24 exit 169

Topic: Local copperheads. (We will have at least 3 persons present who have been envenomatied by copperheads and will discuss the affects)

Door prizes: Sponsored by Get Tanked pets in Rossville, GA (www.gettankedpets.com) and Pet-Addicts Inc in Huntsville, AL. (www.pet-addicts.com) Feel free to contact them about pre-ordering anything to deliver to the meetings.

Services: We will have a digital scale on hand that is capable of weighting up to 150 pounds. If you have an animal you are needing an accurate weight on, bring it to the meeting. We will also have probes on hand if anyone needs to check the sex of a snake. E & D Rattery are schedules to attend. Contact them to have feeder mice and rats delivered (deniwalk7@aol.com or 706.375.8190)

Miscellaneous: If you have alternate topics you wish to discuss, feel free to bring them up. If you have anything you wish to add to the topic, please come prepared to present it to the group. Pappy's is adding extra staff this night to better accommodate us. If you are planning to attend, please respond to this email so i can give them an idea of how many to expect. Also, please come hungry to help support them. It is very difficult to find a place willing to work with us due to the nature of our hobby. Thank you very much for your time and I look forward to seeing most of you again and meeting some of you for the first time.

www.TriStateHerp.com

The Tri-State Herpetological Society will be holding their bimonthly meeting tomorrow 1/6/09 from 700pm to 900pm eastern time. ****EVERYONE IS WELCOME & ENCOURAGED TO ATTEND*****

Location: Pappy's BBQ in Wildwood, GA Take i24 to exit 169 and turn right off the exit. This is only about 7 or 8 minutes from downtown Chattanooga.

Topic of discussion: Local copperheads. several live snakes will be there to observe.

Check website for further details. Thank you!

***excellent food***door prizes***free services*** <><

Given the inclement weather conditions, we had an excellent turnout. We were surrounded by floods and tornadoes on all four sides and still had crowd of about 42 people. We were very close to completely packing out Pappy's BBQ. Had we had better weather, we would have probably had to bring out chairs from the back. Several members took pictures. We will be posting them in the TSHS MySpace page very soon.

We would like to give special thanks to Pappy's BBQ for sponsoring the location and to Get Tanked pets and Pet Attics for sponsoring the elaborate door prizes.

We held a group discussion on the tri-state locals copperhead populations, complete with 4 different local copperheads to display and 2 others for comparison. A few "general publics" came over to me after the presentation and wanted to see the snakes and ask questions.

We had a good mixture of returning TSHS members who were regulars at our last meetings and some new blood who were attending for the first time. We even had a couple members from the former Tennessee Valley Herp Society, which preceded the TSHS.

The president of the East TN Herp Society in the Knoxville area was in attendance. Sonnie came to get a feel for how we do things and told me after wards she was impressed with the turnout and the presentation.

Daniel Dodson, owner of Pappy's and his manager, both thanked us for holding the meeting there and seemed to be very happy with the arrangement.

The official meeting kicked off a little after 700pm and ending right at 900 pm with the conclusion of the door prizes, however, many members remained until 11pm visiting and discussing the hobby.

We could not have been more pleased with the meeting and we look forward to hopefully continuing this momentum in the months to come. The next meeting will be held March 3, 2009 from 700pm to 900pm (eastern time) at Pappy's BBQ in Wildwood, GA.

Tri-State Herpetological Society
www.TriStateHerp.com Info@TriStateHerp.com $Click to support the efforts of the TSHS$