“My husband Arvid and myself were regular members of the Western Bird Society in San Francisco. The society met on Sunday afternoons. I can’t recall when I met Laurella, but because I don’t drive she would pick me up and we would drive over to the meetings. We would feed our flocks, go to San Francisco, attend the meeting, drive home, and then finish our bird chores before calling it a day.”

“Laurella, myself and others from Contra Costa County found the distance and time it took to get to the meetings inconvenient.  So, one day I asked, ‘Why don’t we start our own club?”

Laurella and Mark Desborough, Betsy and Walter Frey, and Marie and Doug Greenwood were invited to Sybil and Arvid’s house to consider the idea of starting a bird club in this area. It was a beautiful day and they all sat around the pool discussing the idea. It sounded feasible but what would they call this new club? Arvid suggested the Concord Turkey club.

This name was immediately shot down. Then, after some discussion, the Contra Costa Avian Society was chosen as the name.  A second meeting was held, again at the Gundersons to determine, among other things, what the purpose of the club would be. All present finally agreed to “the education, conservation, and propagation of exotic birds.” Walter added “I’m all for propagation.” This got a big laugh.

Sybil came up with the name “Cheep News” for the club newsletter because at the time she had many finches who cheeped all of the time.  “We looked for a place to hold the meetings and found Mt. Diablo Elementary school within walking distance of my house. Today there are many housing tracts filling the open space that I walked through to get to the meetings. It was some years later that we moved to the Water District.”

“Our meetings were advertised on the Televents channel. This channel gave a listing of all local events and meetings. Word of mouth was the best advertisemement. At one point the club had over 200 members who came from Pleasanton, Brentwood, Pt. Reyes, Santa Rosa, etc. Traffic was much less of a problem in those days. The membership consisted of half breeders and half pet bird owners and we had speakers who presented many subjects of interest.”

“Laurella and I did just about everything for the club: the newsletter (typewriter, cut and paste), raffle, obtained the ads, membership, and finances. Bill and Linda Ratto were at the meetings almost from the beginning taking care of the refreshments—there is no word to describe their dedication.” They are probably the longest continuously active members of CCAS.

“Jack Marlette of Danville showed tremendous dedication to the club and truly believed in its importance for educating people about better care for their birds. He raised many types of grasskeets. He was diagnosed with congestive heart failure and was waiting for a heart transplant but still happily volunteered to drive people from the airport to the AFA convention in San Francisco. He passed away a couple of weeks after the convention.”

“A bigger purpose of the club was that it brought a lot of people together with the same interest and we learned from each other. We were all caring for something other than ourselves. As a club we also tried to educate pet and bird stores on the importance of everyday care other than just seed and water. We stressed a more nutritional diet, interaction with the birds, and exercise, etc. Now looking back, it seems like the club started back in the middle ages.”