I was hoping someone else would rise to Tracey Austin's dark
comments on 18 Nov about "the other club", clearly - to my mind-
referring to the Bird Observers Club of Australia.
I guess many BOCA people are not into the web, while the paid
staff and volunteers are working hard on the expansion of the
premises so they become large enough for precious archives (like
Roy Wallace's papers) to move out of the back shed and so the
Council can meet without some people having to stand.
I am a member of BOCA and Birds Australia and don't want to
make negative comments about eitherof them here (both survey
their
members, including me, for that sort of thing).
But I do want to mention some things that BOCA does well. It:
- publishes its magazine 11 times a year
- has, via a trust, held land for bird conservation for decades
- allows any member to borrow books, tapes, slides etc. by post
- runs about 60 outings each month (plus long-distance trips)
- has created a comprehensive series of bird call tapes
- promotes community action for specific endangered species
- works hard on conservation issues
On the last point, visit their website
http://www.birdobservers.org.au/ and look at BOCA's conservation
newsletter, The Harrier. More conservation work is done by the
20+ local groups (for a splendid example, see Maureen Cooper's
postings to Birding-Aus about issues in Mackay where she is
Macboca's conservation officer).
BA and BOCA have different (although overlapping) missions but
both do well given their small memberships. Please note two ways
in which they are the same: both have a flat rate subscription
with no discounts for remote or country members, and neither -
Tracey was mistaken - runs this mailing list !
So thanks again Russell Woodford and Andrew Taylor for doing it
voluntarily. And thanks to both BA and BOCA for their work.
And if BOCA is not on your web site links please help by putting
it on. We're in this together.
Michael Norris
Melbourne
Birding-Aus is on the Web at
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