Calendar Usage

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Calendar Usage

Hey folks,

spring is officially here again, which means the various wildlife charities and organisations have been busy updating their websites and sending out this year's events programmes to their memberships. I'm sure many of us will have been busily ear-marking the various walks and courses that catch our eye.

Unfortunately, none of us are members of everything. There will be walks and talks, courses and bioblitzes that we have no idea are happening, maybe right on our own doorsteps. Currently we have to spend quite a lot of time more or less randomly searching the internet, hoping to stumble across an event close enough or interesting enough to be worth attending. The general idea is that we use the Calendar page as a means of publicising these events to other Pan-species Listers. How many times have you read about an event on somebody's blog and thought, "damnit, that sounded great. If only I'd known beforehand, I could probably have made that". I don't know about you, but I've done that many a time.

Obviously if we take the time to fill in ALL the public events from ALL of the organisations offering walks/talks/courses/bioblitzes this summer then the calendar will simply implode on itself! So I'd suggest ignoring the bigger, well-publicised organistaions (eg RSPB, LNHS, the Wildlife Trusts etc) and maybe throw in some details of the less well-known groups and those dealing with slightly more obscure orders. Particularly those events which are open to non-members. For example, how many of us are competent in earthworm identification, or even know how to become competent? Probably not many, yet the Earthworm Society of Great Britain have workshops and regular digs (the digs are free to attend and open to all), as well as their own Facebook group. See their events page at http://www.earthwormsoc.org.uk/event-information. Or how about the British Myriapod and Isopod Group? They have an absolutely fantastic 3-day field meeting once a year, this year it is in Scotland. Fancy that? Well, tough - it's too late. Payment had to be in by end of February at the latest. Maybe if it had have been on the Calendar page you could have made it...

Maybe you are already an expert in your chosen field, could you put yourself to use by attending a bioblitz event? Of course you could, you just need to know when and where and you could be there making a very useful contribution.

Potentially the Calendar page could be the most useful feature on this website! At the moment it is skeletal, almost bare. Have a think, leave a comment below, and let's finally start making that Calendar earn its place on this site.

 

 

 

I still think it would be a

I still think it would be a great idea if we all just put one event on a week, it then becomes self sutaining!

Really?

But that doesn't really help PSLers plan very far in advance...unless you want to tackle April, someone else May, somebody else again tackles June....meh! :(

I don't mean for THAT week!

I don't mean for THAT week! Just for sometime in that year, obv the further in advance the better! I'm going to set myself the challenge of one a day!

But we can do this by April!

I think it would be better if PSLers were to simply look through this years programme of events for whichever organisations they belong to, and whack up the "juicy ones". Ideally by the end of this month. That should fill the calendar up rather nicely! The whole essence of Pan-species Listing is to look at and try and tackle various orders you wouldn't ordinarily attempt, learn new search methods and identification techniques, to become a more accomplished all-rounder. You can do this by yourself, and many do. But walks, talks and courses are a brilliant shortcut, a way to meet like-minded people and to learn from their mistakes and experience.

These events ought to be broadcast to ALL Pan-species Listers, give us the chance to say, "you know what, I'd really quite like to go on that walk. It's something I think I'd like to learn a bit about. I'm so glad it's on the Calendar else I'd never have even heard about it." 

BENHS and Beds Invert Group

I'll try to fill the calender with BENHS and Beds Invert Group events, as and when the programmes are announced. The Beds group is right up our street with an emphasis on recording all groups of invertebrates, especially neglected groups, as well as all other wildlife too.