2007 Magazine Version 05.indd - Butterfly Conservation Warwickshire

Solihull Environmental Day, Shirley Park, 17 June 2006
by Val Weston
Did you know that every year Warwickshire Branch has a stand at the above event?
For the last two years I’ve organised fund-raising activities. This year it was a tombola
with help throughout the day by six work mates from Barclays Bank and their families.
After an all-night moth survey in the Wyre Forest I was able to take along plenty of
fantastic moths to show to the public including 3 types of Hawk Moth and a spectacular
Orange Moth, having had just 2 hours’ sleep. I was pleased to be joined by Sheila and
Sandra who set up the tombola whilst Chris Johnson and Val Hill got to work setting up
the Butterfly Conservation display.
We’d got everything looking good and having 74 prizes, all donated by Barclays’ staff,
family and friends, it was hard work. Then everything was disrupted when John Reeve
arrived with the moth display cage. We weren’t expecting him to join us this year even
though he’d managed to get us a prime spot for our stall right by the park entrance. He
caused chaos as we had to put the display right where our prizes were, as it was the
shadiest part of the stall. Up to then the moths were in a cool bag so it did make them
look better and they had room to fly. We just managed to get sorted out again as the
public started to appear.
It was a great day, the weather was perfect and everyone seemed very interested in
the moths (they were released later and the rarer ones were taken back to the Wyre
Forest the next day by Richard Southwell). They also put in a guest appearance at a
Stourbridge Moth Night that we attended that night.
The tombola was very popular and all the prizes went with the star prize not being won
until gone 4 o’clock when there were only half a dozen tickets left in the box. We raised
a grand total of £182.42 – how we managed that we don’t know as it was £1.00 a go! A
little old man donated his last 2p but how did we get 40p? This amount will be matched
by Barclays Bank through the employee matched funding scheme so Warwickshire
Branch will receive £364.84 – not a bad sum for a fun day out. We even had an official
visit from John Reeve in his role of Mayor of Solihull – he was only too happy to pose
for a photo with the Barclays Fundraisers which is now displayed on our office wall.
Chris and Val always do a great job with the official business of encouraging
membership and spreading information about our local lepidoptera, but why don’t more
people get involved with helping out at this annual event and others? It’s fun and it
makes you feel good. It’s also not too hard to organise your own fund-raising event or
work day. Try it sometime, you’ll be surprised.
We’d like to thank everyone who helped out on the day – Sheila, Sandra, Jay,
Harminder, Bev, Louise and their children Abigail, Josh and Nikita plus of course all the
public who “paid to play”.
Val Weston
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Butterfly Conservation Warwickshire Branch Magazine 2007