Growth

Just before Christmas I had a spring clean of my natural history memberships/subscriptions. Three of them bit the dust and for differing reasons. First up was the RSPB. I had been a member for over 40 years. My reasons for cancelling membership were down to a few episodes of shoddy treatment towards certain individuals I know who had worked, or volunteered for the organisation. I won’t mention names or places. These episodes make me feel as if the society that I first patronised back in the late-1970s had become an altogether different animal, one that puts money before people without a second’s thought. Maybe this is the way of the big charities today, but it saddens me. The next casualty is the periodical ‘British Wildlife’. I have subscribed (on and off) for maybe 15-20 years, but have increasingly found that I was only reading 50% of it. The third up is The Wildflower Society, a modest and charming collection of botanists but one which I am no longer an active part of. The £100 or so that these cancellations of ‘membership’ have saved are not going to be placed elsewhere - those that still survive will be up for review as well, as some are survivors from a time when my patronage of wildlife charities and clubs was wide and indiscriminate.

This curbing of what I support is not a money saving exercise. If I’m honest, it is about questioning how and why I do things. Maybe it is a wish not to have a life ‘on repeat’ where things get renewed just because I always have done so, that the same publications don’t only get read because they’ve always been at hand. The RSPB was the biggest call, as my support of the society was one born of a wish to back up their habitat protection. Maybe one day I will return. Both they, and British Wildlife, sent me communication thanking me for my support, which I thought a nice touch in a largely uncaring and entitled world.

Coming up to the end of the year is always a time for reflection and planning (it is for me at any rate) and so my thoughts have turned to how I use my time and what can be done to better it - and ‘bettering’ it holds a whole host of definitions. It’s a privileged and first world exercise for sure, but an enjoyable one all the same. Wrapped up in it will be health, enjoyment, fulfilment, companionship, education, community and growth. And that last one - growth - is important.

Comments

martinf said…
I've done a similar exercise this year too. With British Wildlife I go through phases, currently reading less than half so may have to have a rethink.
On the flipside, having worked at a number of places and organisations (both NGO and not) over the years, I can only say that from my own perspective I've never had a more supportive and nurturing employer than the RSPB. Currently on my second stint for them.
27 December 2020 at 18:10
Steve Gale said…
The RSPB decision was made from the events at one reserve Martin, so it is good to know that my perceptions of wrong-doing are probably only at a local level.
27 December 2020 at 19:02
Derek Faulkner said…
Probably not hard to guess what reserve you refer to Steve. You've made me question why I'm paying subs to the RSPB myself now, apart from the quarterly magazine, I gain very little from being a member, I never visit their reserves. I only joined them in c.1976 when they began setting up my local Elmley reserve but they don't even have that any more. I also think that they have branched out too widely and have become more of a wildlife society rather than concentrating purely on their original concept of protecting birds.
28 December 2020 at 07:03
Steve Gale said…
Some interesting points there Derek. The non-bird awareness is to be applauded, but when they spend money, effort, resource and time on it there will be some who question it. A whole post in that nugget!
28 December 2020 at 09:11
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Goldfinches and Lavender

Image
We have three medium-sized Lavender bushes in our back garden. Throughout the summer the flowers (which last for several months) are a magnet for insects and give off a most restful aroma. As tempting as it is to cut the dead stems in the autumn, we always leave them, as we know that during the late winter we will get visitors to feed on the seed heads... This video was taken from the kitchen window this morning. We will normally see one or two birds over a few days, but have had up to 14 at once. We never tire of watching them. Lavender is a wonderful plant to have in the garden, with year round natural history benefits. So what are you waiting for? They are readily available at a garden centre close to you right now! There is an historic association with Lavender in this part of northern Surrey and south London. Lavender fields have been harvested for many years, with one particular field close to Woodmansterne being very popular with day trippers. A significant proportion o...
Read more

Welcome back!

Image
In November 2005 I purchased a pair of Swarovski 10x42 EL binoculars from The London Camera Exchange shop in Guildford, for the then princely sum of £899. These bins have served me well, with almost daily use in all types of weather, testing their durability to the maximum - salt water spray, deluges of rain, 38C temperatures, dust, dirt, slight knocks... and apart from the armour coating that had started to bubble and come away from the body, nothing to be alarmed about. Then, in the summer of 2022, I noticed that I had a problem when close focusing - the outer focusing wheel would lose grip and it would take me an age to regain a middle-ground distance of focus - plus, over the next few weeks this outer focusing wheel became loose. I resorted to the use of tape to keep it all in place, but realised that I had to do something about it in the long run. For a while I did consider buying a new pair - after all, they were then 17-years old - but they were still optically superb. It seemed...
Read more

A special day

In birding, timing can mean the difference between an average day in the field and that of a spectacular one. Good timing can be helped by reading the weather conditions correctly, or understanding local conditions but it is more often down to pure luck. In this case, I just got lucky... I had not visited Dungeness since March 2022, quite a gap for me. It was high time that I once more trod the shingle and my timing of a visit was down to several factors, mostly a personal liking for mid-late autumn but also because I needed to be at home until September 20th and could not make the journey south until then. I also chose to stay at the bird observatory for a few days rather than make it a day trip. All this conveniently found me stepping outside the observatory's back door in the breaking dawn of Sunday 22nd September, quickly making my way to the fishing boats, an area I prefer to stand to best appreciate any visible bird migration, an aspect of birding that I find exhilarating.  A...
Read more