Bird Club Money Problems |
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You might be surprised to hear that the Bird Club
has money problems and needs your help. No, this is not a begging letter
asking for more of your hard-earned pennies. Our problem is that we are
fortunate to have a bit of spare cash and believe that members should have
a say in what Council spends it on or indeed if you want us to spend it at
all. The extra money that we find filling our coffers is income from the Atlas. You’ll be glad to hear that our acclaimed Atlas is still selling well and will hopefully do so for some time to come. As the vast majority of the costs of producing the Atlas came from our sponsors we are now making a tidy profit. Depending on sales the profit is likely to be in excess of £10,000. This may not seem like a huge amount of money but as a charity we may be able to use it to attract extra funding from other sources such as the lottery. At the last Council meeting a variety of ideas were put forward. Please have a read through the following and let us know which ideas you think are the most suitable or if you have any ideas of your own. 1) Purchase some land for conservation. It may be that we would be better off doing this in conjunction with another conservation body such as the RSPB or CWT who have resources to manage land. Perhaps the fund could help extend some current Cumbrian reserves. 2) Build a sea-watching hide. This could become a focus for the Club and help with migration studies. Selker and St. Bees were mentioned as possible sites. 3) A multi-media projector or a new slide projector for talks. 4) Use the money to subsidise improved bird reports and the newsletter. 5) Computer equipment for bird records. 6) Grants for research by Club members. 7) Equipment for surveys. 8) Save the funds to underpin the future production of a Winter Atlas. 9) Educational packs for schools etc. 10) One-off projects such as a sand martin bank. Please let me know what you think by post, telephone or e-mail |
