The work of Council is reported in the Bulletin in various guises each year: notably in the Council Newsletter, the General Secretary’s annual report, and the President’s report to the AGM, as recorded in the minutes of that meeting. This has entailed much ingenuity on the part of the General Secretary and, perhaps, some degree of boredom on the part of the readers.

It has been decided, therefore, that from this year the President’s report to the AGM will be published in the spring Bulletin, with additional comments by the General Secretary where appropriate, and the AGM minutes will contain only a reference to the Bulletin in which it can be found. This will also have the advantage that the detailed report from the President is available at the earliest possible date for members who could not attend the AGM.

 Mike Walton, October 2003

The Journal of Bryology is our flagship publication, and its on-line production is a bold step needed to bring us in line with other scientific publications. Work on this is actively proceeding and, with small ongoing modifications, the new arrangements are working well. This important topic will be further discussed in agenda-item 10. Thanks to Jeff Bates and Howard Matcham and to the Scientific Editors for ensuring a relatively painless transfer.

Few members can have missed the exciting developments in the Society’s Field Guide, which is now visibly taking shape on the BBS website. With respect to the number of species that will be included, a balance is being sought between including only those species that can be identified in the field, or including those species plus references to those that cannot (with any certainty) be readily identified. Whichever option is implemented will ultimately depend upon ensuring that the guide does not become unmanageably large – after all, it is meant to be a field guide.

Earlier this year Ian Atherton volunteered to help design the Guide and typeset it in Adobe InDesign, to incorporate photographs, text, maps and drawings, and produce a press-ready file of the whole book – in other words, to see the project through to the completion of the finished book. Ian is Design Manager and Senior Staff Editor for the Society for General Microbiology, where he designs and produces journals of academic research. His professional skill in preparing attractively designed pages for publication can be seen at the conversazione in Room N101, after dinner tonight. Council noted that John Birks has offered to make his large collection of photographs available for the Guide. John has images of about 80% of British species, so his generous offer is a great boon to progress.

The report of Council from the Spring meeting, on the re-housing of the BBS library at Preston Montford, will be put to the AGM for a decision today – item 9. I won’t preempt this discussion here, but merely thank both the Council, and in particular members of the Council Working Group, who put so much work into the report.

This last year has provided another successful year of BBS meetings. These are remarkably diverse, varying from the popular local meetings such Society business 18 Field Bryology number 92 as Malcolm Watling’s meeting last December at Ham Fen, to the southern Italian meeting led by Roberto Ligrone, with Jeff Duckett co-ordinating the arrangements for British participants. A quick look at the BBS website is enough to make those who didn’t go, wish that they had. My other regret here is that the superb bryophyte photos here are not credited. And of course there are the regular Bryophyte Workshops which this year hosted the inaugural meeting of BRECOG, the BRyophyte ECOlogy Group, led by Jeff Bates. Again, the BBS website has a most useful summary of the action-packed day. The BBS maintains the high quality of its regular Spring and Summer meetings, guided respectively this year by Martin Godfrey at Stafford and by Mark Lawley at East Sutherland and Orkney. Mark, as Meetings Secretary, must be thanked for his part in arranging all these meetings. Also I must mention the 12 bryological Field Studies Council meetings not under the aegis of the BBS, 11 of which were led by Martha Newton. The value of these meetings to bryology in general and to the BBS in particular, should be acknowledged here.

The next 12 months promise a similar feast, of which I will highlight just the Summer field meeting in Mull, and the two Masterclasses at Preston Montford. These Masterclasses include an optional mock exam that might encourage you to proceed to the Natural History Museum’s prestigious Identification Qualification (IdQ) exam.

Revisiting the BBS website, which I don’t do often enough, reminded me of how excellent it is. It is more and more our front door, but perhaps we take it for granted these days – so I should like to highlight the work of Angela Newton and Jonathan Sleath, and thank them both. Like a swan moving serenely on the surface of the water, but paddling like mad underneath. The same of course could be said about the Journal and Field Bryology.

Earlier this year, Plantlife Link Scotland (PLINKS - a forum of organisations, including the BBS, working for the conservation of plants and their habitats in Scotland), published its ‘Strategy for the conservation of lower plants and fungi in Scotland’, copies of which will be available at the conversazione. In their letter PLINKS outlined the project and picked out targets relevant to the BBS. Essentially, the aim is to promote bryophytes (amongst other lower plants) and is precisely within the BBS remit. The total project cost is £250,742 and Scottish Natural Heritage is committed to providing £113 k (45%) so long as the project starts by March 2007. PLINKS is now working to raise the other 55% (£138 k) and the BBS and other specialist societies have been asked to commit £2,000 a year each for three years, in order to demonstrate commitment to the project and to make it easier for PLINKS to tap other sources of funds. The Bequest Committee and Council have each agreed to contribute £3,000 over the three years.

Lastly, I must record a few items that do not relate directly to Council. Firstly, the corrected 2nd edn of Tony Smith’s excellent Flora has been published, though in paper-back format only. I should like to thank all those, but particularly Tony and Howard Matcham, who contributed to producing the work as it should have been published originally. Secondly, I was delighted by Tom Blockeel’s English edition of Fey, Frahm, Fischer and Lobin’s The Liverworts, mosses and ferns of Europe; at such a reasonable price I cannot see any BBS member without it. And finishing on a lighter note, I applaud the new moss garden as RHS Wisley. This coincides nicely with the government moss initiative of withdrawing all dichlorophen products – the stalwart of moss-killers – and recommending an Integrated Plant Management approach instead: mossy gardens.

SR Edwards