5. Which topics interest you?
The top six interests were:
Botany (41 votes)
Fungi (33 votes)
Butterflies (30 votes)
Geology (29 votes)
Mammals (27 votes)
Moths (25 votes)
It is interesting to see that three of the four main interest groups feature here -
botany, geology and fungi (birds came 7th with 23 votes). So, are we thankfully
providing a large number of trips that people are interested in going on, or are
people enthusiastic about these trips because that is all that is on offer, so they go
on them and they did enjoy the trips anyway? Other high scoring topics included
lichens, beetles, amphibians and reptiles. The lowest scoring topic of those listed
was "flies" (sorry, Del!).
6. Why have you never been to a meeting?
Understandably, this received a broad range of answers, although interestingly
"lack of interesting topics" did not get any votes, which is encouraging.
Mainly, people were too busy, had only just joined the Club, had transport
difficulties to get to the meetings or suffered mobility or health problems.
Those members living out of the county are deemed to have a good excuse! If
you do not have a car PLEASE do ask the leader of the event if there is the
possibility of getting a lift with someone else. We are quite a friendly lot,
really, and would be prepared to give someone a lift to events.
7. What is your main reason for going to field meetings?
This is an interesting response, with recording the county's flora and fauna NOT
featuring heavily on our personal agendas! Learning identification skills came
out as the favourite reason (49%), with having a sociable day out second. This is
quite important, since there is a need to strike a balance between "entertaining
the members" and getting on with the raison d'etre of the Club which is strongly
biased towards the detailed recording of the county's flora and fauna.
8. How do you rate the performance of the meeting leaders?
Thankfully, "good" or "very good" accounted for 89% of responses, with only
1 "moderate" and 3 "no opinion".
9. Which weekend day is better for you?
A real "hung jury" on this one, with 14 votes for Saturday, 12 for Sunday and
29 with no preference.
10. Would you be interested in week day meetings?
There was a strong "yes" vote for both daytime and evening visits during the
week. This is obviously a tricky one, with most of the county recorders (usually
Essex Field Club Newsletter No. 41, May 2003
17