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NEWSLETTER No. 12 -  Winter 1984/85

WEST MIDLANDS BRANCH, BUTTERFLY CONSERVATION

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Pride of place in this issue of the newsletter must go to the Cotswold Butterfly Festival held in July at Postlip Hall near Winchcombe.. The event really surpassed all our expectations, attracting some 700 people over the course of the day and raising well over £300 for the branch. In fact, so successful was the Festival that, by the end of the afternoon, cars were having to be turned away because there was nowhere left for them to park! The branch are extremely grateful to all those members who contributed to the success, whether through being involved in the organisation of the event, by supporting us on the day, by generously donating items for sale or by providing practical and financial assistance.

Next year we are hoping to repeat our success, only this time making it bigger and better. The date has been fixed (Sunday, 14th July 1985) and planning for the day has already started. At our AGM we hope to set up a Festival Planning group to really get things moving. It would be nice if we could involve a broad cross-section of members in this, so please don't wait to be asked - volunteer!

The other highlight of the year was the establishment of our second branch reserve in the Cotswolds. This is a very important area of limestone grassland containing a range of typical butterflies found in this habitat, including one of the strongest colonies of Duke of Burgundy in Gloucestershire. The branch are extremely grateful to the owner for giving us a chance to manage this site with butterflies in mind. This Winter we shall be concentrating our conservation efforts on our own reserves, which means that we shall be entirely dependent on our own members - so please lend a hand if you possibly can.

We are including with this newsletter a questionnaire which we hope members will fill in and return. It is really an attempt to find out what skills and resources we have within the membership, and also a chance for you to tell us how you would like to see the branch developing in the future. We hope that you will find the time to complete it, along with the garden butterfly survey sheet, which is also enclosed.

At the AGM this year, Terry Green will be standing down as Branch Treasurer. Terry has been Treasurer since the inception of the branch and indeed was a founder member. We are grateful to him for his work over the years and are pleased that he has agreed to remain a member of the branch committee.

We hope to welcome as many members as possible to our AGM and, indeed, to all our winter activities. The official business will, no doubt, be dealt with as painlessly as usual, and this year we shall have a film produced by one of our own branch members to look forward to. We trust that all will find something of interest in this issue of the newsletter, which once again has turned into something of a bumper edition. We very much welcome articles, letters and observations for publication to the address at the end of this newsletter.