Previous AGM Minutes
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HERTFORDSHIRE & MIDDLESEX BRANCH Branch Review of 2020 Previous AGM Minutes Due to Covid-19, the AGM scheduled for March 2020 did not take place. Accordingly, the most recent minutes relate to those of the 2019 AGM, which available on the Branch website: http://www.hertsmiddx-butterflies.org.uk/events/AGM_minutes23.03.19.pdf Chair’s Report – Malcolm Hull The last year has thrown up challenges in many aspects of our lives. The impact of Covid-19 and the ways we have responded feature throughout this report. All Branch events have been impacted to some extent, with many butterfly walks and moth events restricted or cancelled due to the requirements for lockdown and social distancing. But we’ve risen to the challenge, videoing or livestreaming events and putting together our biggest ever programme of winter talks, culminating with Members Day on 27th March. Increased use of Zoom and email communications has saved the branch considerable printing and postage costs, resulting in a healthy bank balance. However, the impact on Butterfly Conservation head office finances has been considerable, resulting in significant losses of staff and funding. For this reason, we agreed to donate £5,000, a significant proportion of the branch surplus, to head office. The Covid-19 epidemic has increased the focus on wildlife and helped draw attention the severe decline of many species and the risks of extinction. Our President David Attenborough has played a key role in highlighting the huge problems faced by all animal groups, particularly insects. The considerable conservation efforts made in our area in recent years have helped halt and reverse the decline of many butterfly species. But this is not typical of the world as a whole, where huge declines in all forms of wildlife are continuing and, in some areas, escalating. We can’t solve the world’s problems, but we can help by taking practical conservation and knowledge sharing activities to show how healthy ecosystems can be restored with butterflies and moths at their heart. Planting wildflowers in our own gardens, attending conservation tasks, and advising on landscape scale management, all make a valuable contribution to biodiversity. It’s been a challenging year for our Branch projects, with progress slowed or delayed. Big City Butterflies is our flagship project, aiming to provide two full time workers focused on conservation and knowledge sharing in inner London. This is organized jointly with head office, the three other BC branches with London representation and major funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund. After some delay, the project is now confirmed, and staff recruitment began in February. I will update at Members Day, in the meantime contact either Paul Busby or me if you’d like to be involved. Our Small Blue Project, focused on Greenwood Park, St Albans is continuing, with interpretation boards and a rabbit proof fence erected during the year. Regular Small Blue site monitoring is underway and we eagerly await the first Small Photo © Ian Small Blue sighting. All the other Small Blue sites in our area are doing well, with more Kidney Vetch seeding recently completed by the Boxmoor Trust at Lower Roughdown, near Hemel Hempstead. Brown Hairstreak has continued to spread in Middlesex. We have continued to monitor its expansion and engaged with site owners and managers to explain the specific habitat requirements of this butterfly species. We are keen to expand our role in conserving other rare species, particularly White Admiral, Grizzled Skipper and Dingy Skipper. If you would like to help with this, or just find out more about branch activities, please do get in touch. There’s always a list of tasks we need help with that you can access via the “Can you help?” page on our website – the current list is reproduced at the end of this document. Greenwood Park Chalk Bank for Small Blue Photos © Malcolm Hull Your committee has continued to meet, adapting well to the new medium of Zoom. Alex Lewis has joined us as press officer and already had success in achieving coverage in several local papers. Thank-you to all the committee and other members who have contributed so much over the year. A special mention to Brian Legg, whose Butterflies of Heartwood Forest booklet has sold extremely well, resulting in donations of over £700 for the Branch (see Branch website for details of how to order a copy). Sadly. we lost several branch members and supporters during the year. - John Hollingdale, a founding member of the Branch, our longstanding Branch Treasurer, who was passionate about butterflies and moths, serving on our committee for over 20 years - Brian Sawford, another founding committee member, author of The Butterflies of Hertfordshire, which inspired so many of us to develop an interest in butterflies. - Trevor James, eminent local naturalist, author of Flora of Hertfordshire and a keen butterfly observer - Paul Thrush, former Herts & Middx Wildlife Trust Reserves Officer, responsible for much valuable habitat management work - Professor David Newland, author of ‘Discover Butterflies in Britain’ - a guide to the best places to see all Britain's different butterfly species flying in the wild. He was a keen supporter of Butterfly Conservation and our Branch. They will all be missed and there will be a tribute to Brian in our next newsletter, due out in April. Secretary’s Report – Liz Goodyear As reported elsewhere, we were due to the Covid-19 restrictions unable to hold our Members’ Day incorporating the AGM in 2020. All committee meetings were held online using Zoom and the majority of the committee were able to participate. Since April 2020, we have met five times and also used Zoom to have small working group meetings to discuss specific issues. Although it is a shame that we can’t meet in person, Zoom does have the advantage of saving on fuel costs! Membership Report – Ian Small Membership figures are compiled annually by Head Office at the beginning of November, allowing us to track the growth of our own Branch, but also to compare it with the fortunes of other BC Branches. As usual, the figures show a mixed picture. On the one hand, we attracted membership from 156 new households, numerically down over 10% from the previous couple of years. However, a slightly reduced attrition rate this year led to a net increase of 51 households (4.5%), almost identical to the previous year, giving a new total of 1195 households. The proportion of new household members is very close to the average seen across all BC Branches. The consistent growth trend since Head Office began collating these figures is shown below. As households can have single, joint or family membership, the number of actual members is higher than the number of households and stood at 1622 as of 1st November 2020. Household Addresses 2011-2020 1195 1200 1144 1094 1100 1060 1000 972 908 900 866 815 800 720 679 700 600 Oct-11 Oct-12 Nov-13 Nov-14 Nov-15 Nov-16 Nov-17 Nov-18 Nov-19 Nov-20 The largest BC Branch continues to be West Midlands, with 1846 households, closely followed by Hampshire & IOW (1804) and Yorkshire (1779). We remain 11th largest of the 31 BC Branches. Not surprisingly, our planned event dedicated to new members did not take place due to Covid-19 restrictions. It is unclear at this time whether it will be practical to hold such an event during 2021. We are, however, exploring the possibilities for providing online material of particular relevance to those who have only recently developed an interest in butterflies and are keen to know more. The Branch newsletter continues to be produced twice a year, but our planned expansion of online distribution was pre-empted by the practical impacts of Covid-19 restrictions. As a result, Branch newsletters are by default provided electronically as pdf files, via the Branch website, with members receiving a link that is sent out via the Head Office bulk mailing system. Hard copies are still available on request for those who have not provided any e-mail address, or those for whom reading via an electronic device is impractical. There is no plan to change this approach once Covid-19 restrictions have eased – the substantial savings on the costs of stationary, postage and other consumables allows a far greater proportion of the Branch finances to be targeted towards conservation activities. At the end of 2020, Head Office migrated the Society membership database to a new system. Unfortunately, this has led to a number of unforeseen glitches, the resolutions to which are still ongoing. This has led, amongst other things, to delays in Branches being notified about new members, some members being incorrectly flagged as having lapsed and issues relating to people who belong to multiple Branches. As a result, a number of members will not yet have received Andrew Wood’s annual report of the Butterflies of Hertfordshire & Middlesex, 2020. Head Office have promised to provide updated membership lists by the end of March 2021, at which time copies will be distributed to any members who had been omitted from the earlier distribution list due to these issues. Butterfly Walks & Moth Events – Liz Goodyear The 2020 walks programme was still in preparation when Covid19 social gathering restrictions were imposed so did not get published. With the relaxation of restrictions in June which enabled small numbers of people to meet outside, a few walks were held. These were restricted to just six people including the leader and had to be pre-booked. There will be a programme of butterfly walks in 2021, but these will not resume until the middle of May.