Anniversary

ANNIVERSARY

BOC 40th Anniversary

The address given by Robin Prytherch to the 40th Anniversary meeting on 28th January 2007, with accompanying pictures.

How we started... and continued:

Cutting The Cake Who can remember back to the 1960s? It was a great time to be a birdwatcher because it was the time of the first big boom in our hobby. It is difficult now, in the early 21st century, to remember that it was possible then to watch an extreme rarity with just a few of one's friends. Now there are likely to be hundreds, if not thousands, or birders scrambling to get that vital sighting.

But even forty years ago things were changing fast. Word of mouth by phone (no mobiles) was the only way that information got about fast, with no monthly newsletters, pagers, e-mail, chat rooms and web sites. The Bristol Naturalist's Society did produce a bi-monthly news sheet which had a small paragraph of bird news for those members of the ornithological section, but this did not satisfy many birdwatchers. Prolonged attempts were made to get an expanded and more frequent news sheet (amongst other things).

The BNS was stymied somewhat by its Constitution and furthermore, their limited budget had to be spread between all the branches of natural history interest.

The Anniversary Cake

This all came to a head in early 1966. Yes, there were a few radicals about then who wanted a better service for birdwatchers! In April of that year a few of us started an independent news sheet titled North Somerset Bird News - just one sheet of foolscap (the 'old' A4) - and it was a milestone.

The May issue was published on 1st June! Demand for copies followed and contributions poured in. The December issue filled six and an half sides of foolscap and contained national bird news and information, as well as an unprecedented amount of local bird news.

That issue, published on 13th January 1967 also contained an 'important notice' which stated that it would be the last issue of North Somerset Bird News which could be issued free of charge; as from the January 1967 issue the newsletter would be published by the newly formed BRISTOL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB.

Robin's Speech The vital decisions had been made just one month earlier on 13 December 1966. A meeting of those most concerned about bird watching in the Bristol area was held at Butcombe. It had become clear to all of us that there was an obvious need for a new club or society. During the meeting the basic structure and objectives of the new organisation were drawn up. There was a brief discussion about what the name should be.

'Bristol Bird Club' was one suggestion but there was already another BBC! It was thought that the use of 'ornithological' would better reflect the objectives, and so 'Bristol Ornithological Club' was chosen. The familiar pattern of both indoor and field meetings was commenced immediately; the inaugural meeting being held on 20 January 1967.

BOC 40th Anniversary The first Committee, comprised of most of the founder members (of which there were 17), had already decided that the monthly newsletter would be known simply as Bird News, set the annual subscription at £1.0s.0d., started to draw up our Constitution and Rules and had chosen our symbol, or logo - the Pied billed Grebe, a bird at that time unique to our area in Europe. This latter decision was arrived at after a long list of species was considered. Almost all of them had already been chosen by other groups and in the end our choice was easy.

The creation of the County of Avon was a blessing in disguise for ornithology (even if it was hated by many residents). The new county comprised Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire and presented an opportunity to restructure the publication of county reports.

Thus the duplication of earlier years ended in 1979 with first Avon Bird Report. During 1983 the club and the BNS, as equal partners, created a new body - the Avon Ornithological Group - which was set up to produce the Avon Bird Report. This arrangement continues to work well, even though, ironically, the County of Avon no longer exists.

BOC 40th Anniversary The Committee also decided on the style of the annual report. It is worth recalling that in 1966 the Bristol area was covered by no less than three Annual Bird Reports; those of Bristol, Gloucestershire and Somerset. This duplicating of reporting was a much lamented fact of the day and the new BOC Committee was determined to avoid adding to the confusion.

Indeed, if the new Club could provide additional, rather than competitive features to its members, all the better. So the annual report would be in the form of a journal containing papers and notes by Club members.

The first Bristol Ornithology was published in 1968. This, and subsequent issues, contained a wealth of ornithological contributions of national as well as local significance.

Many of the papers are cited widely in a variety of publications from regional reports to the Handbook of the Birds of the World. For many years the journal also contained an annual review based on all the records submitted to Bird News. As it was, all the record slips were 'loaned' to the editors of the relevant county reports until Avon became a reality.

BOC 40th Anniversary Over its 40 years the Club has achieved all of its objectives, in total or in part, although of course it must be said that, 'achieving' our objectives will continue for as long as the Club exists. A couple of examples will help: In pursuit of objective number 6, which mentions the promotion of special study areas at Chew Valley Lake, etc., the Club was responsible for making the initial approaches to Bristol Water with proposals for conservation measures at Chew. It is easy to forget this because since then most of the ideas have come to fruition under the aegis of the Conservation Advisory Committee (on which the Club is represented) and the Avon Wildlife trust (which helps to manage the reserve a the south end of the lake).

Objective number 5 - promoting field research through co-operative and individual studies - has been achieved in various ways, but the committee has often had long debates about how to involve more members' field work. In the early days the greatest and most successful effort was associated with the British Trust for Ornithology's first breed bird atlas.

BOC 40th Anniversary Since then, of course there has been the winter bird atlas and the Breeding Bird Survey as well as many species orientated surveys. The BTO representatives will testify to the tremendous effort put into these studies by Club members. Individual studies are encouraged mainly by providing the opportunity for the results to be published in Bristol Ornithology (as we originally envisaged).

A glance through just a few issues will reveal the volume of work that has been produced (56 papers based on the local area plus many notes). In an instance where the contribution was too large, but having much wider significance and appeal for normal treatment, the Committee agreed to the publication of a special supplement.

Thus The Sunning Behaviours of Birds by K.E.L. (Ken) Simmons (a founder member incidentally) was published in 1986 (with the aid of a grant from the Royal Society) when it received excellent reviews and sold well. Some of us have hoped that more publications might have been produced.

In the early years field meetings were designed mainly for field work(!) and the thought of social coach outings was far from the mind of the Committee. But the fuel crisis in 1983 forced a change of attitude and since then coach trips to more distant locations have been a regular feature on our programmes. Our first ever weekend trip was to Cap Griz Nez in France.

BOC 40th Anniversary This was a joint trip, with Chew Valley Ringing Station, but most weekend trips since have been home based. Some longer trips, or holidays, have been home based too, but many have been to far flung places like Morocco, Lesbos and Estonia - a trend not envisaged by the founders. Apart from being good fun, with excellent birding, the weekends and holidays serve to introduce members to areas that they might not otherwise have visited.

When the Club was formed it was estimated that we'd have about 80 members at the end of the first year. In fact we had over 100 and over 500 by the 10th year - an astonishing growth. But it settled back to about 450 in the early eighties (do you remember the recession then?!) In the nineties the membership rose again to just below 700 at which level it remains.

BOC 40th Anniversary The Club has not stopped still and is constantly looking at ways to improve the service to its members. Mid-week field meetings (mostly local) have proved to be a popular addition to the programme. The last few years has seen the instigation of a BOC website and this has proved to be a good way of promoting the Club to judge by the number of new members recruited from it.

In 2005 a PowerPoint projection system was acquired to run alongside the regular slide projector although the former is rapidly taking over. And now in January 2007 the first trail of providing Bird News by e-mail has happened. Despite all this electronic wizardry it's reassuring that when one is out birding a friendly voice will still ask "Anything about?"

One constant factor throughout the 40 years has been the keen and friendly interchange between members, tremendous support for Bird News, the backbone of the Club, Bristol Ornithology and the indoor and field meetings. And not to forget the astonishing hard work put in by Committees and many individuals over the years. This is a Club that we have all made, and it is one we should all be proud of.

Home Page

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws