BSBI Summer Meeting 2016 kicks off in Cumbria

BSBI President John Faulkner
at supper with Ian Denholm
(BSBI President 2013-5)
Image: Sarah Stille

Botanists have started assembling at FSC Blencathra in Cumbria for BSBI's Summer Meeting 2016. Here's the first of a series of on-the-spot reports from Jonathan Shanklin, BSBI's Field Meetings Secretary and Secretary of BSBI Meetings & Communications Committee, who has led on organising this meeting:

"Jon arrived in Threlkeld at noon and rendezvoused with Phil Brown, one of the triumvirate of Cumbrian recorders. Both of us had actually arrived a little earlier and did a little bit of recording to get a feel for the local flora. After discussing plans over lunch in The Sally we headed up the road to Blencathra where we received a very friendly welcome from the staff at the Field Studies Council Centre, even to the extent of trusting the Field Meetings Secretary with the master key. 

"The forecast rain proved to be a brief shower at lunchtime, so some records were made of the Centre grounds by participants before the bar opened, and some were even added to the local database before dinner.  

John Faulkner with Lynne
Farrell & Jon Shanklin
Image: Sarah Stille

"After dinner the reserves manager from the Cumbria Wildlife Trust, Joe Murphy, gave us an enthusiastic and well illustrated talk about the Trust and some of the sites it manages including some of the sites that we will be visiting. It certainly whetted our appetite for the day tomorrow when we will get to see some of them at first hand. 

"The FMS followed with a short brief on recording and H&S (use your common sense!), that went on just long enough to allow the bar to open as scheduled at 9pm. Most members then adjourned, leaving the FMS to continue refining the groups and their destinations for the weekend recording venues and write up this blogpost."

Many thanks to Jon for this report and fingers crossed that the weather is good for the first field trip of the Summer meeting tomorrow.