January again - sad news!

January again, and with the whole of a busy 2015 to look forward to, our plans have been blighted by the news that we are to lose our wonderful Welsh Officers, Polly and Paul, due to lack of funding.

The Welsh botanical community has always been very active and cohesive and the support of these two has made it so much more so. Their help includes offering support with Mapmate and data input, helping to organise field meetings, gently urging along our Rare Plant Registers, [making Wales potentially the first of the countries to have complete coverage of these] liaising with Local Records Centres and with Natural Resources Wales.  In the field their skills and support have enabled Vice-county recorders to re-find plants recorded long ago and they have carried our further monitoring of rare plant species.  Two such appropriate people for their work would be hard to find - and, on top of all this, they are so nice to work with!

We feel that this decision has been a big mistake and hope that all is not lost even if it has to mean reduced working hours -  we are all lobbying hard for it to be reversed.

Paul in Committee

Polly in the field