Membership

Our membership at the end of 2002 was 239. We recruited 12 new ordinary members and 5 new student members during the year. This represents a net loss of five members over the year. Amongst the losses and resignations, I have to note with regret the death of Gareth Owen. An obituary appeared in the August 2002 Bulletin. Despite our efforts, there are still a number of outstanding subscriptions for 2003. We should also note with regret, and thanks for past services, the formal resignation, at the end of 2002, of C.P. Nuttall, a member since 1960, and a former treasurer of The Society.

Meetings

We have held four scientific meetings during the year. The first, combined with our AGM, was a two-day event, Molluscs as Model Organisms for Physiological, Ecological and Evolutionary Research, held at the Marine Biological Association at Plymouth, 22-23 March. A full programme was enhanced by contributions from locally based researchers and a visit to the National Marine Aquarium. Full details are in Bulletin 39 (August 2002). Thanks are due to Steve Hawkins and his colleagues at the MBA for a memorable meeting.

In June, Peter Skelton laid on a one-day meeting on Fossil Mollusca at the Open University, Milton Keynes. Six speakers covered a broad range of topics, and details are also available in Bulletin 39.
The annual Molluscan Forum took place at the Natural History Museum, London, on November 7th. As in previous years, this attracted an international gathering of students and new post-doctoral researchers. Numbers were larger than ever, with 24 presentations (talks and posters), and with many other participants joining in the discussions. We owe immense thanks to Alex Ball, who has organised both all local arrangements and the increasingly complex IT environment for every Forum since their inception.

Only two days later, there was the final meeting of the year, an all-day conference on Recording Schemes and Biodiversity Analyses, arranged jointly with the Conchological Society at the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff. This was a well-attended, international event, dealing with challenging methodological issues in a field of increasing importance to malacologists. Thanks are due to Mary Seddon and her colleagues at NMW for hosting and organising this meeting, and to the Conchological Society, which took the lead in this joint venture.
Full details of both November meetings are in the Bulletin, 40 (February 2003).

Publications

Journal of Molluscan Studies

Volume 68 contained 55 papers and research notes, totalling 400 pages. In terms of the country of first author, the scope of the Journal can now claim to be truly international, with 36% of papers from continental Europe, approximately equal percentages from North America, Asia and the British Isles (20, 18 and 15% respectively), and fewer from Australasia, South America and Africa (4% in each case). The percentage of papers from the British Isles is the lowest for at least the past seven years.

The new format of the Journal is now established, with a change to a smaller font size. The standard of printing, in particular the quality of the plates, has been improved. Each year the cover design will be changed, but the theme will remain ‘form and pattern in the Mollusca’, avoiding the more obvious pictures of glamorous tropical gastropods. Suggestions for future designs are welcome!

Our board of Associate Editors is now: David Brown (freshwater Mollusca), Mark Davies (ecology and behaviour), Liz Harper (bivalves), Peter Mordan (terrestrial Mollusca), John Taylor (Neogastropoda, mineralogy, ultrastructure) and Mikael Thollesson (Opisthobranchia). In addition, Brigitte Grimm has joined the team as Editorial Assistant. I am extremely grateful for their hard work and support.

Oxford University Press, who publish and distribute the Journal, are introducing some important and welcome changes in 2004:

At present, subscribers (both institutional and personal) receive a single printed copy and free online access. In future, institutional subscribers will have the choice of a print-only, an online-only and a package price, and in each case the price will be determined by the size and nature (e.g. commercial or academic) of the institution. At present, the prices have not been fixed, and the possible impact on The Society’s income is unknown.

OUP is proposing to offer free online subscriptions to educational and not-for-profit institutions in the 67 poorest developing countries, and reduced subscriptions to 60 further countries (this second group will include e.g. India, Brazil, South Africa, Thailand).

There will be improvements for authors of papers in the Journal: PDF files will be offered as an alternative to reprints; supplementary data (figures, large tables, movie clips etc) will be published on the web alone (removing the need for printed appendices); and proofs may be sent out electronically.

The first two of these changes will undoubtedly increase dissemination and improve access to the Journal, and all should make it more attractive to authors. Members of The Society can help by publicising these developments, especially among overseas colleagues.

The Bulletin

The two issues in August and February covered The Society’s meetings in Milton Keynes, Plymouth, and Cardiff, and the Forum at the Natural History Museum. It also carried accounts of malacological meetings elsewhere, news items, and notices of forthcoming events. The Editor, Bill Bailey, is grateful to all who contributed items, and to Dr. Tony Cook in Ulster who has produced the Web version of the Bulletin. Note that the web version carries coloured photos!

The Society Website

Our website continues to play a key role in advertising The Society’s activities. By the middle of February this year, it had clocked up nearly 31,000 hits, 6,000 of them in the last 8 months. It has maintained a steady rate of c.25 hits per day for the last two years. It is updated regularly, and is a gateway to many other sites of molluscan interest.

The Society’s Awards

We are pleased to report that the number of applications for our Annual Award and for the Centenary Research Award has risen. Announcements about winners will be made separately. There is still a need to increase awareness, especially for the Annual Award. I should also like to draw attention to the changed remit of the C.M. Yonge Award: in the first instance we intend to make awards to assist promising students of bivalves to attend and make presentations at this year’s Molluscan Forum.

Officers and Council

On behalf of The Society, I should like to thank our retiring Council members: David Aldridge and Stephen Hawkins. Apart from many other services, it should be noted that they were responsible for, respectively, the conferences associated with our AGMs in 2001 and 2002. Hugh Jones, of course, is responsible for this one. He is standing down as our Membership Secretary and we owe him thanks for both services, and wish him well in his retirement. David stays with us as a Vice President.

Mark Davies ends his term as Vice President, but, happily for us, has agreed to continue to manage our website. For that, and especially for his service as our first Membership Secretary, he is owed many thanks.
This meeting ends my own term of office. I would like to thank all the Officers and members of Council who have worked with me for the last three years. There has been an immense amount of enthusiasm and hard work, especially demanding for those who, unlike me, hold full-time posts in increasingly tough times.


Robert Cameron, President