East Scotland Branch

Minutes of a Branch Committee Meeting

held on 3 April 2013 at the BC Offices in Stirling

Present: Barry Prater (Branch Chairman), Colin Whitehead (Branch Treasurer), Duncan Davidson (Butterfly Recorder, Fife Area Organiser), Helen Rowe (Aberdeen Area Organiser), Richard Buckland (Membership Secretary, Newsletter Editor, Lothians Area Organiser).

1. Apologies:Lesley McCabe (Perth Area Organiser), Ellen Wilson (Assistant Treasurer), David Lampard (Tayside Area Organiser).

Before the meeting, Ellen had been in touch to say that because she is so short of time, she thought she would need to step down from the committee. However, the committee thought that her continuing inputs would be useful and Barry would talk again to Ellen.

[post-meeting note: Ellen has agreed to remain on the committee and contribute to its work as and when she can. She is particularly keen to help at events during the summer, which is very welcome.]

2. Declaration of Interests

None were declared.

3. Minutes of Previous Meeting

These were approved as an accurate record.

The only item raised was progress with the Regional Action Plan. Barry advised that this would very soon be published on the branch website, along with supporting information to help guide people, especially with regard to survey and monitoring activities for priority butterfly and moth species. Duncan agreed to prepare data on the butterflies for Mark Cubitt to produce maps of all sites with the dates of latest records and Barry would send Duncan relevant information on this.

[post-meeting note: the RAP has now been published.]

4. BC 2020 Vision

Prior to the meeting, Barry had circulated various papers covering recent 2020 Vision activities, particularly on the work of the Branch 2020 Action Group. There was a wide-ranging discussion on potential East Scotland branch activities whichcould help support the achievement of the Vision’s aims, with the initial emphasis on:

  • expanding our membership and supporter base
  • developing and motivating volunteers and extending links

Potential activity / Benefits / Potential Issues
1 / Publicise BC events more widely / Greater numbers will attend and may become supporters/members. / None really - some effort required and possibly too many attendees (control by pre-booking).
2 / Expand publicity generally
Facebook
local press
news page on website / Gets the message across about BC’s aims and activities to many more people, leading to more support. / Mostly the extra effort needed and identifying who will be responsible for doing things.
3 / Have a programme of evening meetings, which could be centred on different parts of the branch area. / Attract people from a wider range; also could link in with other groups having related interests / Finding people to present at meetings; arranging venues and managing events. No track record of this in branch.
4 / Local area organisers to make personal contact with all new members / Get involvement from people with fresh enthusiasm for BC; new ideas. / Effort needed to e.g. phone new members each month and having the confidence to do this.
5 / Enlarge branch committee membership / More ideas, spreading of workload, increase external contacts. / Identifying new members. On-going difficulty of arranging meetings because of branch size.
6 / Work more with other organisations involved with conservation and wildlife / Extend the reach of BC. More likely to achieve conservation and to attract funding for this. / Selecting who to work with. Potential for BC’s aims to be lower priority than those of a larger partner.

Items 1, 2 and 4 were thought to be the easiest to start on and committee members would work on these initially.

5. Events 2013

Local field trips, moth evenings, etc were now arranged for the summer season, although not all in time to be included in the branch newsletter. Volunteers would be needed for two major events arranged by others for which full details are awaited:

  • Scottish Bird Fair, Hopetoun House (11-12 May) - Shona Greig is organising a rota. Barry & Barbara will run the stand on the Sunday and Ellen has volunteered to help.
  • Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh Bioblitz (21-22 June) - Ellen, Colin and Richard have offered to help, but more information is still needed from the organisers.

6. Branch Finances

The 2012/13 year end accounts had been prepared and circulated by Colin. It was agreed that they were in order and Colin was thanked for his efforts. Several matters regarding the management of branch funds were discussed with the following conclusions:

  • Volunteers’ travelling expenses (for surveys, etc) - people would need to request and get approval in advance for these to be paid and a specific amount would need to be agreed beforehand. It would only be appropriate to cover identified priority work and results would need to be reported to the committee. Barry would decide on a case by case basis in consultation with Colin and others as necessary.
  • Charges out for data and interpretation - the current typical charge of £30 for data we supply (to consultants, developers, etc) was thought to be too low and should be £100. However, judgement should be exercised so that conservation benefits are not jeopardised by demanding too high a price.
  • Handling out-going invoices - from now on these would be dealt with by Colin, unless circumstances made this inappropriate, but Colin would still be kept informed.
  • Branch financial reserves - it was agreed that £500 would be sent to each of the BC Match Pot Fund and the Moth Challenge Fund in order to reduce our reserves. Additionally, funds would be designated to be spent on fencing to protect a Dark Bordered Beauty breeding site in Aberdeenshire.

7. Future meetings

The next branch committee meeting would take place in the autumn, probably late October. The branch AGM would be arranged at the next Members’ Day (28 September) and would cover essential business only. Advance notice of this will appear in the newsletter.

Barry Prater

18 April 2013