By John McCausland

The dean of the seminary I attended (I’m an Episcopal priest) had a saying: “these things don’t just happen.” He’d pronounce it at every event, the prelude to a long recitation of thank you’s for all the work behind the scenes that made the event possible. I thought of the dean’s saying when I was asked to write about my years of involvement with the Piscataquog Land Conservancy. I first learned of what was then the Piscataquog Watershed Association, or PWA, in 1997. My wife and I had just moved to Weare from Chicago and we wanted to learn about our new community, especially the woods, old farms, rivers and mountains that had attracted us to rural New Hampshire. So when we saw that a man named Gordon Russell would be talking about the history of the Piscataquog watershed at the Weare library, we knew we wanted to go.

It was an evening of slides and lecture, of Gordon filled with passion for his subject. Starting with the glaciers, then the Indians, then the settlers, all the way up to a powerful appeal to preserve the environment from rapidly encroaching development.

After his talk, we engaged Gordon in conversation and a few days later walked with him on the property we’d bought with its old farm house that turned out to have once belonged to Gordon’s great grandfather. In the course of the walk, Gordon asked me if I would be willing to go on the board of this conservation organization he was part of. “We need to grow the board, broaden our reach. We need to be bigger to do what needs to be done,” he said. Thus began what is now my 23-year association with PLC.

In 1997 the PWA already had a long history behind it. Many of the founding fathers and mothers were still actively involved. It was still adding protected properties. But it was an all-volunteer organization, holding board meetings in people’s homes, its modest finances run much like a family’s checkbook. Most of its land conservation work was brought in through word of mouth.

The first step to build from this base was to broaden the board membership to include representation from as many as possible of the Piscataquog watershed towns. There were still many individuals from the “old days” who volunteered their services and kept the organization feeling like a family. But there were also new people who brought skills – organizational, legal, financial, as well as environmental – that were essential to our growth.

In 2002, after months of discussion, we took the momentous step of hiring a part-time staff person to take care of the growing administrative work. We soon realized that we needed a professional land protection staffer. In 2003 we hired our first executive director, Margaret Watkins, and rented a two-room office in the old house connected to the New Boston Community Church. The pace of project acquisition picked up, and became more focused. We began seriously raising money.

Looking back, these steps may seem small and obvious, but each involved an organizational risk. The thing that struck me, as a board member and officer through these years, was how time after time when faced with the choice of expanding our reach or staying steady, PLC chose growth. We added staff, we began to build our stewardship fund reserves, we became more systematic and proactive in assessing properties to protect. We changed our name in 2008 to the Piscataquog Land Conservancy to more accurately reflect our mission.

In recent years PLC has continued to choose growth. We have become a fully professional organization, covering twenty-three towns (from an original eleven), and protecting over 8,000 acres (I remember when we crossed the 1,000 line). Today we have a staff of four -- still crammed in that same tiny office behind the church. We are nationally accredited, our finances are in good order, and we have a solid reputation in the conservation community in New Hampshire and beyond.

I think back to Gordon Russell’s words about needing to grow. I think back to all the meetings, all the phone calls, all the emails, all the fundraising visits – and all the joy of protecting special places and making special friends. These things didn’t just happen, and at the PLC they’ll still be happening when this octogenarian is long gone. To have been part of it is one of the great satisfactions of my life.

John McCausland is the retired vicar of Holy Cross Church in Weare, and a former member and chair of the PLC Board of Trustees.