Page 15 - Out Birding Winter 2024

rate informa􏰀on to members. Nor is this a reflec􏰀on on the magnificent job our event organisers do to lay on these birding trips. We are mindful that some poten􏰀al event organisers might be anxious about the prospect of laying on events, and the slight increase in the care we take over health and safety aspects. To this end, Nigel has stepped up to offer support for any would-be event organisers to offer advice and to support them to take the next steps.
Two of our Grand Get Togethers have dominated our thinking for the past twelve months. The most recent was held in October in Skegness, and was a great success with Liz, Caroline and par􏰀cularly Pat excelling in their organisa􏰀on of the long week- end. We were also very successful in the cash we raised for the Conserva􏰀on Fund as well. Our next GGT will be hosted at the Grant Arms Hotel in Grantown-on-Spey: we consulted widely with the membership to ensure that this venue, which involves more travel than normal for most people, would be well supported. In the end, we decided to go ahead and take bookings, and members didn’t let us down: 76 have signed up at the last count. This promises to be a great long weekend in Scotland.
We s􏰀ll have a specific vacancy on the commi􏰁ee for someone to co-ordinate our external facing ac􏰀vi􏰀es. This does not mean that we have been quiet in this sphere, with our website con􏰀nuing to a􏰁ract new members, and our Facebook presence proving popular. Special thanks are due to Julia Hopper who is responsible for website updates, and to Rik Morley, Kerry Su􏰁on-Spence and Chris Whitby who moderate the Facebook site, which has 524 members. We are o􏰂en asked why we put so much effort into our Facebook presence when we get no revenue from the membership: the main reasons are that subscribing members get considerably more benefits than the Facebook site which is used for li􏰁le more than informa􏰀on and picture-sharing, but adver􏰀ses our ac􏰀vi􏰀es to a wider LGBT birding group than our current membership, and encourages people to become paid members. We have also reached out to a youth group in the BTO thanks to an entertaining presenta􏰀on by Richard Lazenby: we are looking to build on this rela􏰀onship, along with a number of poten􏰀al ini􏰀a􏰀ves, to promote a wider age range for our membership.
We con􏰀nue to organise monthly Zoom mee􏰀ngs outside of the summer: these are available to the en􏰀re membership, and are growing in popularity thanks to the inter- es􏰀ng and high-profile speakers that Jim has managed to procure.
We have made some progress in developing our membership system, and have looked at a web-based applica􏰀on that will give members control of their membership data, access to an on-line payment system, access to GBC email lists and poten􏰀ally to a limited membership directory. The principal benefit to this system will be to reduce the overhead for our Membership Secretary in managing payments, keeping on top of the membership database and managing email communica􏰀ons with our current facili􏰀es. It is hoped that, if tes􏰀ng is successful, we will be able to begin using the new system in the next few months.
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