Changing times
Looking through back issues of the Bulletin from around 10 years ago,
the most striking changes in The Society’s activities have been
to the research grants and awards. This has leapt from £100 to
around £8000. The Annual Award has been running since 1976, and
the Sir Charles Maurice Yonge Award started in 1993. The first Centenary
Research Grant was awarded in 1995. In the years since then, most awards
and grants have changed their remit, and all have changed their value.
Travel grants were first introduced for the Unitas meeting in Western
Australia, and the first Education Award this year.
Another change has been the annual Forum for young malacologists in
the autumn at the Natural History Museum, first held in 1997. This meeting,
like others, has had difficulties, booming in some years but cancelled
in 1999. Recently two other meetings have been cancelled due to failure
to attract speakers. Whatever the reasons may be for these difficulties,
are they an indication of what we may expect as the future of The Society?
Is The Society to become a charity with a journal but few members, meeting
only to discuss grant and award applications? Is that what we want?
If not, what do we change?
I am grateful to everyone who has contributed material for inclusion in this issue, particularlyVillie Flari, Simon Cragg and Leslie Elmslie for news items. Please send contributions for the next (February) issue to me by mid-January. Contributions of articles, brief reviews, and news items (including items from non-malacological journals) are especially welcome.
Please keep articles and abstracts simple and succinct - ‘as short
as possible but as long as necessary’ - avoiding or explaining
specialist terms. Where appropriate, include a reference to a more detailed
account, and an illustration. Please make the content of emails clear
in the header, or I may delete them unread as ‘spam’.
Bill Bailey
Dr S E R Bailey
Faculty of Life Sciences,
3.614 Stopford Building,
The University of Manchester,
Oxford Rd, Manchester M13 9PT, UK.
Email: bill...@manchester.ac.uk