The Appalachia Georgia Friends of the Bears (AG-FOB) organization was represented at the 6th International Human-Bear Conflicts Workshop held October 16-20, 2022 in Lake Tahoe, NV. AG-FOB Co-Founders, Gerald and Connie Hodge recently attended the Pathways to Progress: Connecting People, Conserving Bears themed workshops where Gerald presented Social Media, an Economic Enabler for Proactive Education and Outreach by Gerald Hodge, Appalachia Georgia Friends of the Bears. Read More About This Event
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Appalachia Georgia Friends of the Bears 2022 Report Card
Appalachia Georgia Friends of the Bears’ mission is to reduce Human – Bear conflict through proactive educational outreach programs, increasing public awareness about coexisting with Black Bears, the use of humane bear deterrents, and advocacy. The fight and advocacy for our Appalachia Georgia American Black Bears will never end!
Growing Pains!
We celebrate our 2nd Birthday on Thursday, June 03, 2021! We are taking the opportunity to take a look at ourselves, where we have been, and where we are going, and as always, the future looks challenging but hopeful! We are doing some branding and rebranding and will have a new logo soon that we are excited about!
Over the next twenty-nine days, you will notice a few changes on how the website looks and some of its capabilities. It will become more dynamic and interactive for our visitors. Humans will be able to see an “Events Calendar,” a blog post, and other features that will help us engage the public that is not on social media. Speaking of social media . . .
We have noted through our conversations with the public, that many people have dropped off of Facebook specifically and social media in general over the past eighteen months and do not intend to return. In addition, there is currently a conflict between Apple iOS 14.X’s privacy changes and Facebook. This conflict results in any marketing data gathered by Facebook being incomplete when it is provided to the end customer, digital advertisers. This cuts into Facebook’s bottom line. As a result, Facebook is “saber-rattling” that Facebook will become a “pay to play” platform sometime in the future. If so, we foresee more people leaving the social media platform. We want to be prepared for any transition because our mission to reduce human-bear conflict will not change. We still need to reach the public whether it is on social media or not.
Improvise, adapt, and overcome!
Another item we will be adding to our tool bag is an e-Newsletter! The e-Newsletter will be published at least once a month, but we are aiming to publish it twice a month. It will have exclusive content not available on social media. We would like to hear your thoughts on what you would like to see in an e-Newsletter! E-mail us with your thoughts! More to come on that in the near future!
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