News archive
August 2008
Tuesday, 12 August 2008
Heron in our pond - a letter from John Sillwood
We live in Shepperton on a small estate backing on to Littleton Lane and have one or more herons who come to our area regularly to raid our fish ponds. They have no worries about landing in the garden and I have chased them away on a number of occasions. When this picture was taken we were away for a few days and our neighbour looked out of their window at about 07.30 and saw the bird under the netting. The netting covered virtually all the pond surface apart from a small area near the barrel where a plant grew through. The heron managed to get in through this small gap, knocking over the plant in the process but then could not get out. Our neighbour is in fact a bird lover but was worried about getting too close to that large bill until he summoned help from another neighbour and the bird was eventually released at around 12.30. This meant that it was trapped for about 5 hours at least and subsequently did not fly off for about 2 hours, suffering presumably from fatigue, fright or both. Eventually the bird did fly away and we have not seen it since. We have now installed a solid grid to protect the pond fish and our feathered friends.
You may also be interested to hear that our neighbour feeds the birds avidly and has a massive array of visitors including sometimes up to about 10 goldfinches who are attracted by the Niger seeds. So much so that he also attracts predators, among which has been a sparrow hawk and he has some pictures of one of these devouring a smaller bird on his lawn. I have also seen a similar incident in our front garden. If you are interested I can also send you a copy of this picture.
Luckily the heron got away, hopefully with no long term effects and I am glad to say that the bird must have been so traumatised that it does not seem to have eaten any of the fish!
Saturday, 9 August 2008
Annual General Meeting - Wednesday 25th June 2008
Welcome and thank you for coming to the AGM
2007/08 was a year of opportunities for North West Surrey Group which, with the help of our fantastic Committee and stalwart volunteers we grasped wholeheartedly.
Our Group work this year has given us certainly the best year during my term of office and possibly one of the best years ever in terms of fund raising and recruitment. We have given £5,000 to the RSPB, doubling last years and equivalent to 7% of funds raised within SERO catchment area, raised over £4,700 from Pin Badges, received £679 from sales of goods and recruited 22 new members to the RSPB. I think you all need to congratulate yourselves. Angela, our Treasurer, will give you the exact figures and breakdown. We also saw the Group highlighted on the front page of the new South East Region Events Listings - with photograph of the working crew at Bedfont Lakes summer fayre and a picture of Father Christmas in the latest edition of Involve that goes out to all volunteers in the region.
Firstly I will say a big thank you to the Committee. Angela Pugh for her management of our Accounts, she does a fantastic job and I appreciate her hugely. Alan Sharps for his work on Publicity, for getting our name in the press and his contacts at Bedfont Lakes. Jan Bagley for her work managing the sales and organising Christmas goods for us. Peter Hambrook for his work on the Newsletters which are produced 3 times a year, for collating the programme and organising the Bird Counts at Thorpe Park. Frank Clark for organising and running our Outdoor Programme. Ray Wilson for his work as Secretary and the website. Jackie Phyall for taking over the membership secretary role. Dave Braddock who has continued organising Indoor meetings, growing plants and supporting me as Group Leader. Without this very supportive committee your Group would not be able to continue, thank you ladies and gentlemen very much.
Another person I would also like to thank is Simon Lumsden, for his work on recruiting new members as he recruited the lion's share, his work on managing the Pin Badge scheme in our area and for auditing our accounts. Simon received his 25 year service badge from the RSPB this year.
Funds raised by us have continued to go to Farnham Heath Reserve in Surrey.
Our membership has risen to 148, 2 more than last year. It is good to see our membership growing slightly. Weekend Outdoor meetings have continued to be varied with Frank in charge and Peter Hambrook and Geoff Allen have put together additional monthly mid week walks from January which have proved popular.
RECRUITMENT AND FUND RAISING
We now have a system of one person taking on the organising of each of our events and Alan Sharps has co-ordinated this team. Events were as follows:
Spring Fayre at Shepperton included the children's Painting Competition. Derek Belsey was able to make an appearance to judge the pictures. Sadly it was to be his last as Derek passed away in January. Once again Thorpe Park provided tickets as prizes for this. Thank you to Diane Vowles for organising this prior to stepping down from the committee. Spring Fayre is a real Group event and one where we can all work together to the common end and I thank everyone for their contribution however big or small. Thanks goes to Alan Pugh who took over the reins of this important fund raising event.
The first Nature Day at Bedfont Lakes was cancelled due to bad weather but the Summer Fayre held there was a huge success for us with 9 new members and £132 raised. We also started a scheme of inviting new members of the RSPB to join us in a bird walk at Bedfont Lakes. Two such walks have been held with varying numbers of new members meeting our Group over the winter. Thanks go to Dave Campbell, Geoff Allen and Marion Sharps for their work with Alan Sharps at Bedfont. Marion is cake maker in chief for these events. The walks at Bedfont Lakes have been one way of trying to increase membership. Although not as successful as we would have hoped we have met some new people and welcomed them into the Group
Street Collections have been held at Spring Fayre, Sainsbury's in Staines and Waitrose at West Byfleet. Thank you to David Shenton for continuing to organise these collections and the band of helpers who support this activity.
Simon organised Feed the Birds Day at Long Acres in October for recruitment and fund raising, Hannah Lane organised the Charities Fayre in Chertsey in November and once again Dave and I organised the Quiz Nite in January.
There was one activity that came our way that had not been planned and that was providing a team to be Father Christmas at Wyevale in Addlestone for the weeks preceding Christmas. This proved a huge success with Dave Braddock, Dave Campbell, Mick Cooper, Alan Sharps, Chris Brading, Alan Pugh and Roger Beck form Guildford all helping to raise £1,700.
OTHER
Pin Badges income is up by 126% on last year. Fantastic! Besides Simon we have other monitors to thank for looking after boxes around our area: David Shenton, Hannah Lane, Jim Grave and Marion Sharps, Chris and Kath Brading, Dave Campbell, Vince Smith, Tony Finn and Denise Gauntlett.
Bird seed is still sold at the home of Norman and Hazel Ingate, thank you Norman. Our monthly Indoor Raffle is run by Jean Shirley and Suzanne Brown and raffle prizes are supplied by you, our Friends of the Raffle - thank you. Thanks to Brenda Hunter, ably assisted by Mavis Bradbury and the rest of you who provide us with refreshments at Indoor meetings. Ron Jackson for bird boxes.
Other Group members who stand out when it comes to volunteering are Hannah Lane who received her 25 year service badge from RSPB, Janet Seldon who helps Jan with the sales,
Thank you to everyone who displays the Library posters which continue to advertise our Indoor meetings and remain an important means of conveying messages to the general public about our Group.
Bird counts continue at Thorpe Park despite problems with access. Thank you to all of you who take part in this activity.
We saw the outbreak of foot and Mouth Disease in our area with the resulting restrictions that this dreadful disease brings, the Bird Atlas recordings began in the autumn and several of our members are contributing by submitting records.
CHANGES
Sadly Ray Wilson is standing down this year as Secretary. Also Ray who managed our original website handed over the management to Graham Carey in October. I would like to say thank you very much to Ray for all his work over the years with the website and as secretary. Thanks also to Graham for taking over the website. Jan Bagley, who is already on the Committee, has offered to take over the role of secretary and run it alongside her role with the sales. Dave Braddock is standing down as Indoor Leader. He has done this role for just over 9 years and feels it is time for a rest. He also supports me in my role and plays a role in our Fund Raising.
We need new blood on our committee and I urge you to think whether or not or can come and help us. Sadly the West London Group who meet us on one of our boundaries, have folded. They were successful in getting a new Group Leader, someone who was young and keen, but sadly she was never able to get into her role as the committee ran out of steam. I would feel very sad if that was to happen to us here in North West Surrey. But I think it shows just how precarious Groups such as ours are nowadays. We face many challenges at the present time both personally and globally. However, the burden of many challenges can be eased when shared. Please
RSPB.
This year we have Harriet Dennison from SERO who is giving us a presentation on work in the RSPB so I will leave this update to Harriet.
FUTURE
Last year my target for our Group membership was 150, we got to 148, maybe we can make 150 during 2009. I continue to have concerns how we can keep new members and am open to suggestions from anyone how to improve socialising time for people.
This year has started well already on the fund raising side, recruitment is slower but then membership recruitment has changed and we are all trying to get used to the new flexible way of working. We are always open to suggestions
The new programme will have monthly mid week walks advertised as the pilot has been a success. I have also been successful in obtaining sponsorship for some of our Indoor Meetings; so far Cemex UK Foundation a branch of the Aggregates Company and South West Trains has each given us £100 towards the running costs of our Indoor meetings.
Mary Braddock
Click link below for accounts and synopsis