THE ESSEX FIELD CLUB
DEPARTMENT OF LIFE SCIENCE
UNIVERSITY OF EAST LONDON
ROMFORD ROAD, STRATFORD,
LONDON, E15 4LZ
NEWSLETTER NO. 16 February 1996
FROM THE PRESIDENT
How would you describe the aims and activities of the present day Essex Field Club? When the Club
first came into being it might not have been that inappropriate to regard its activities as encompassing
'hunting, shooting and fishing', the collection of dead voucher specimens of everything living in
Essex being one of the Club's primary objectives. Today however, our members would regard
themselves as anything but, members of an organization that might be misconstrued as indulging in
'field sports' . Our Club is surely primarily a natural history society, with a present-day emphasis
an recording, conservatian and natural history education. Your Council had a special meeting on the
31 January to look at the present and potential future role of the EFC in Essex, debating just how we
could give the Club a new attractive image that would give us a steadily increasing membership, and
how best we might interrelate to such organisations as the Essex Wildlife Trust, English Nature, the
National Biological Records Centre and the local county natural history societies. Particularly in
view of our proposed partnership in a new museum on Epping Forest.
As a result of this meeting Council will be proposing at the next AGM that the Club should change
its name to the ESSEX NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, and redefine its objectives, and rules, in
line wi th its modern image. We propose subtitling the new name with 'formerly the Essex Field Club'
for a few years, and retention of our 'speckled wood on blackberry leaf logo', to give us continuity.
The proposed obj ective of the 'phoenix' arising from the ashes of the EFC has been drafted as: 'The
Objective of the Society shall be to promote the study and conservation of all aspects of the flora,
fauna, geology and related matters in Essex.' The first stab at redrafting the rules by Colin Plant will
be on display for your comment at the AGM. As for some years Essex archaeology has been the
province of the Archaeology section of Essex County Council, and Newham Archaeological Unit,
Council propose dropping this subject area from our remit. To coincide with our proposed new
image, we should shortly be in a position to sign a legal agreement with the Corporation of London
in relation to the Club's role in the new museum, and to participate in removal of the natural history
(including geology) collections to a more suitable venue until the new museum is built. At the AGM
I shall be asking for your approval of the assurances about the new museum, and the long term future
of the collections, that we expect to be given to us in writing by the Corporation of London in time
for the meeting.
Finally, having been at the helm for two years, I shall, with your approval, be handing over to Roger
Payne at the AGM. For me it has been a very busy and at times frenetic two years, but hopefully with
the new museum and Field Club headquarters seemingly now well on track, and again with your
approval, a rebirth of the Club under a more appropriate name and with redefined objectives, - it will
also have been a doubly historic two years - and I would like to express my gratitude for all the support
and encouragement that both Council and members have given me during my term of office.
Ken Adams