The Lincolnshire Bird Club

Interesting discussion but I think it is misplaced. Wikipedia tells me that 98.5% of the people of Lincolnshire describe themselves as white, we do not know the percentage for LBC but I presume it is similar and am not proposing to carry out a survey to find out if we have 3 or 4 ethnic minority members. I do not think free membership of LBC would encourage a young person of any background to take up birding.

There is an important debate to be had about how youngsters from all backgrounds who express interest in birds can have that interest fostered and encouraged. Birders can assist their own children, and those of friends and relatives. School teachers who are interested can play an important role. The RSPB already has a program to help youngsters and that seems to be a natural first port of call for them. The ones in difficulty are those without a friend, relative or teacher who can help develop their interest, with one to one field experience. Modern child protection laws make the kind of social birding relationships I had as a child with older adults completely unknown to me and my parents, much more hazardous these days for both the older person and the child themselves. I'm not sure if birding has ever been seen as cool by teenagers but social media makes comment more biting these days and a young birder with a connection to an older unrelated person will risk being cruelly jibed by their peers.

Any youngster of whatever background needs some strength of character to get though this and come out as a bird watcher. Once they have done so and shown that character, I don't think free membership is what they are looking for. More likely friendly support, gen, some free transport and being shown some good birds, which I for one am happy to provide to anyone of whatever background over the age of 16 years old living in the Louth area who wishes to contact me. For those who live in other parts of Lincolnshire I can probably find someone local to you who will do the same.

Phil,

I think you have muddled up your black/ethnic concept, a concept which forms the basis of Jim's post.

Stuart Britton waxes strong on the subject of ' a substantial percentage of the population of the Boston area' being of ethnic origin and who, despite any misplaced reading of Jim's post title, are indeed of ETHNIC (and white) origin......with not many black individuals amongst them. This fact renders the trumpeted Wikipedia figure of 98.5% of the people of Lincolnshire describing themselves as 'white' totally irrelevant when discussing black AND ethnic members of the community.

Further, there was no reference in the original suggestion to any existing black/ethnic members of LBC. The basic idea (for those who read it with care) was that free membership would be offered as an incentive to a black/ethnic person (young or not so young) who had already shown an interest in birdwatching and who, for whatever reason, might welcome some incentive or other to develop that interest. Anyone remotely connected with marketing would know that price affects our decision making - it is a very strong incentive : just look at the thousands of offers available in the media ranging from '10% off', 'half-price', 'free', etc,.

Freddy
PS. As a matter of interest, does LBC have a de facto chief ' recruiting marketeer' among its Committee members?

Some definition of terms is obviously required to have a detailed conversation but as stated previously I don't see birding in ethnic terms. If people of particular backgrounds wish to develop their interest in birding in Lincolnshire that is great but at present LBC is not looking at offering free membership to anyone apart from those few individuals who through long service to LBC and distinction have become honorary members.

LBC has no chief marketeer recruitment officer. We do have a membership secretary but the role is administrative rather than market oriented. The main purpose of the LBC distilled from our constitution is for a group of like minded individuals to produce the annual county bird report. This forum helps achieve that purpose. Anyone with self motivated sufficient interest can join our club and any member who knows someone who might be interested in taking part can look to recruit that person. We are out there on the web if people want to find us.

I do not think LBC will ever be a mass membership organisation and none of the committee members have expressed an interest in proselytising to increase our membership. The nature of our beast is that there are many people out there with an interest in birds, maybe 10,000 or more in Lincolnshire, only around 300 belong to LBC. While I'm sure all our members are keen to share their records and knowledge in order to improve our knowledge of Lincolnshire's birds, many of those 9,500 plus others with a less specific interest than our own, prefer to do their own thing. Each to his own.

We are all volunteers who can commit varying amounts of effort at different times. If we have enthusiastic members out there who would like to try and boost our membership, or have any other ideas of how we can boost the club, if they'd like to turn up to our next committee meeting on 18th November, to introduce themselves and share their ideas they would be welcome.