THE ESSEX FIELD CLUB
HEADQUARTERS:
THE PASSMORE ED WARDS MUSE UM,
ROMFORD ROAD, STRATFORD,
LONDON, E15 4LZ
NEWSLETTER NO. 7 August 1993
FROM THE PRESIDENT
At over 100 years old, the Essex Field Club is the senior natural history organisation in
the County. Over the last century the Club has made a major contribution to wildlife
recording in Essex. Looking back at the achievements of the Club and at the list of past
holders of the office is a disconcerting experience for a new President charged with
continuing this tradition.
One of the great strengths of the club is that we have a distinguished panel of recorders
who receive and maintain records of many groups of the County's wildlife. Recently,
however, we have been overshadowed by larger organisations such as Essex Wildlife
Trust, whose aims are to deal more specifically with the conservation rather than the
recording of the County's plants and animals. The Council feel that the time has come to
raise the profile of the Club and to restore its true position in recording the natural history
of the County.
We hope to increase membership by encouraging those with more than a passing interest
in natural history to join the Club in addition to the conservation organisations to which
they might already belong. Probably most of us will belong to several organisations, each
with slightly different, though complementary aims. We also hope that the considerable
number of people who would like to improve their skills in wildlife identification will be
persuaded to realise that attending Essex Field Club meetings is one of the best ways to
do this.
Another development will be to change the style of the journal. For the past sixteen years,
each issue of the Essex Naturalist has dealt with a single topic, and this series has been
much acclaimed. We intend now that the Essex Naturalist will revert to the more
traditional style of natural history journal, containing a number of different articles on a
variety of topics, with reports from the specialist groups and accounts of notable finds
made during the previous year. In this way it is hoped that the Naturalist will give an
account of the Club's activities and will provide a permanent and accessible record of the
County's wildlife.
Jeremy Ison