Annual Reports
Vice County Recorders should have received an email asking for their Annual Report 2022.
This only needs to be a short account of activities in your area over the past year; the events, projects, talks and exciting discoveries that made up your year. Please follow the link in the original email to submit your report online or contact me and if you need that link re-sending. Thanks to those VCRs that have already submitted theirs.
James Harding-Morris, Countries Support Manager
New Year Plant Hunt
Our twelfth New Year Plant Hunt starts on 31st December 2022 and runs until 3rd January 2023. We hope that you will take part and add to our growing understanding of how wild and naturalised plants are responding to changing autumn and winter weather patterns. More details on how to take part can be found here.
Louise Marsh, BSBI Communications Officer
BSBI Database
Looking for some Annual Report content? The BSBI database is a great source of information. For example, this query lists all taxa recorded in 2022 with the previous most recent date. So, change the VC to yours in both parts of the query and then re-run, then click on the 'latest date' header to sort that column.
Note - this query won’t pick up any taxa new to your VC in 2022.
James Harding-Morris, Countries Support Manager
Field meetings and indoor events for 2023
The 2023 Yearbook, which includes B&IB abstracts and information about winter talks, is now at the final proof stage. A big thank you to all those who have contributed meeting reports for 2022 and offered meetings for 2023. Details of field meetings and indoor events for 2023 will also appear soon on the BSBI website.
If you organise any further local or national meetings that you would like to be advertised more widely, you can send details to the Communications Officer, Louise Marsh.
Jonathan Shanklin, Hon. Field Meetings Secretary Louise Marsh, BSBI Communications Officer
National Plant Monitoring Scheme
It's the time of year where I expect many of us will be thinking about New Year’s resolutions. My resolution for 2023 is to sign up for a National Plant Monitoring Scheme square. I’ve already checked the website and have seen that there is an unallocated square not far from me, I just need to sign up and claim it!
Why not visit the NPMS website to find out more about the Scheme and see if there is a NPMS square available near you? If you have a local network of recorders you could encourage them to sign up too.
James Harding-Morris, Countries Support Manager
Winter Talks
Our programme of online winter talks opened last month with a talk on ‘The Evolution and Taxonomy of Hyacinthinae’. If you missed it, a link to the video can be seen on this page where you will also find a booking link for the next talk in the series; this one will be on ‘Tulip taxonomy and its impact on the conservation of wild species in their ancestral home, Central Asia’. The talks are all free but pre-booking is essential.
George Garnett, BSBI Winter Talks organiser
Atlas Launch
Plans are being laid for a series of events in March to launch our long-awaited Atlas 2020 project, to which so many recorders contributed. The printed Atlas will be available for BSBI members to pre-order from late January onwards. Look out for a flyer in the January issue of BSBI News, which will provide details of how you can claim a 50% members’ discount. Keep an eye on the Atlas 2020 webpage for more information.
Louise Marsh, BSBI Communications Officer
Rare Plant Registers
As the recently appointed Vice County Recorder for North Lincolnshire I am currently exploring my area vicariously through the lens of the DDb and considering starting work on a Rare Plant Register. As Tom Humphrey said to me the other day, there is no better time than post-Atlas to start working on one.
RPRs are often beautiful, Flora-esque documents - and I thoroughly enjoy reading those written in this way - but they are just as useful as a spreadsheet version without the associated narrative. If your VC doesn’t have one yet then maybe a project for 2023 is to produce an RPR spreadsheet, either as a finished product or as a stepping stone to something bigger. RPR guidelines are here and I cannot say enough how useful Andy Amphlett’s spreadsheet is which is linked from the ‘Tips and hints’ section.
James Harding-Morris, Countries Support Manager
Grants for study, training and research
A reminder that our annual programme of grants for training, plant study and research will open for applications on 1st January. So, if you want to take a training course, or carry out research or study into any aspect of the British or Irish flora – or if you know of anyone who might be interested in applying for a grant – keep an eye on our Grants page from 1st January onwards.
Louise Marsh, BSBI Communications Officer