And the winners are ....

Wednesday 13th November 2019

Tonight's the night.

It is the night of the NBN Awards for wildlife recording.

The crowds in their finery had gathered in the Albert Hall ...

No, not THE Albert Hall, but the rather more modest Albert Hall in Nottingham.

And nobody was in their finery, that was just a flight of fancy on my part. Just a hundred or so people who were involved in or contributed to the wider activities associated with wildlife recording and its administration.

We enjoyed some drink and nibbles before the award ceremony began. A chance to catch up with friends and colleagues and "network" ... and get nervous about being invited to make a speech if we won our category.

The ceremony got underway and after an short introduction the shortlisted candidates for the NBN Young Person's Award were announced. These included an 11 year old from Cumbria. The winner was a 15 year old from Glasgow who records birds, moths and bats and is an ambassador for the Cameron Bespolka Trust as well as being a Young Rewilding Ambassador for Scotland the Big Picture.

Yes! A 15-year old!

The ceremony continued.

The winner of the NBN Newcomer Award was a lady from Berkhamsted who had taken up regular wildlife recording in the last few years and is now carrying out surveys and other activities for a range of organisations.

The winner of the NBN Award for wildlife recording - marine  was a lady from Saxmundham in Suffolk who has been the regional coordinator for the Seasearch project in East Anglia since 2007, typically completing 50 - 60 survey forms per year and has submitted over 36000 records to the Seasearch dataset.

The winner of the NBN Award for wildlife recording - terrestrial was a gentleman from Liverpool who has been recording caddis flies since the 1970s. In the intervening years he has visited every corner of the UK to make new records of this under-recorded group. Since establishing the Caddisfly Recording Scheme he has amassed over 410,000 records.

I was in awe of these winners. And I have not mentioned the runners-up who were almost (but not quite in the judges eyes) as meritorious

Now for the BIG award of the night (not that I was biased) - the NBN Group Award.

"The Runners-up are...."

Did we get the "long pause of silence" to ramp up the tension which has become so favoured in popular programmes involving the elimination of contestants?

Thankfully, no.

Croxteth Park Volunteers who hail from Liverpool and run Wildlife Recording Walks that are open to everyone who wants to come along as well as organising moth trapping sessions.

"And the winner are...."

... the Joy of Wildlife group.

I'll let you into a secret.

We already knew!!!!

That is why we had been invited to attend.

We were sworn to secrecy so were the only ones who knew.

But it was good to see members of the audience who knew about us, indeed may have nominated us for the award, delighted at our success.

So up we trooped to shake hands with the award giver, and then be invited to say a few words.

.... "ERM, UM … Thank you … um, um … We are delighted to receive this award … erm …" etc.

A well crafted speech as you can tell.

Then we posed for a photograph:

Downloaded from the NBN website

And this was followed quickly by a photograph of all the winners and runners-up who were present:

Downloaded from the NBN website

Lots of people came up and congratulated us. Sorry it was all a bit of a blur after the event, but if you are reading this then thank you for your good wishes.

We were presented with a certificate:

I am sorry there is only one copy which presents a problem when it is a group award. Who should have it? Should we pass it around like the school hamster - one person looks after it for a week then passes it on to the next, and so on?

In addition we received a voucher from the FSC to be used as payment towards an FSC course or publications.

And finally the Bird Photographer of the Year book presented by Collins:

We retired to the pub for a quick drink then enjoyed a meal in a Moroccan restaurant with our friends and colleagues from the FSC, Shropshire Council, MMU and Caring for God's Acre.

Even though we knew the result beforehand the names of the people who nominated us were shrouded in secrecy. Eventually it has been teased out. Our nominators were The FSC, Shropshire Wildlife Trust and Shropshire Council. We thank them, and anyone else who contributed, for the time taken and effort made to nominate us.

Thursday 14th November 2019

A bonus prize was to be invited to set up a stand showcasing the group, allowing delegates attending the NBN Conference this day to come and see what all the fuss was about.

I have never set up a stand before but with a little help I was able to produce four "posters" with photographs of us in action and prepared some business cards just in case anyone wanted to know more. This was "enhanced" with a slide show of selected photographs by our excellent team of photographers plus a few other bits and pieces.

And so our adventure came to a close.

Unfortunately it did not end smoothly. Heavy rain in and around Nottingham had flooded the railway between Nottingham and Derby. This caused lengthy delays and we had to return via Leicester. We made it home eventually. Whilst frustrating and at times annoying our plight was minor compared with the hardships being suffered by some.

This award is a GROUP award.

Whether you come out and survey each week come rain or shine, venture out only occasionally or do not come out at all but show an interest in our activities by reading my emails or blogs ….

CONGRATULATIONS

 

winner 2019 NBN Group Award for wildlife recording