Two items of note arose from my visit to the London Office on 25th January.

 

I found the boxes of the book 'Diddle Dee to Wire Gates' had arrived thanks to MLA's Roger Edwards and Sharon Halford who had brought them north on their way to meetings with the EU in Brussels. I was able to post off the first two copies to be ordered from us and managed to sell ten copies to members of ExCo and FIGO staff. I still have 118 copies left but a promotion in the Spring Newsletter may encourage sales. Full details are given below in an earlier post. 

The other item was news of our proposed visit to Kew to see their work in relation to plants from the Falkland Islands. The date has now been chosen as Wednesday 25th April 2012. The programme will commence at 2.00pm in the Jodrell Laboratory at Kew with a tour of the areas with Falkland plants. There will be a tea break from 4.00pm to 5.00pm followed by lectures on the Conservation of Falkland Plants. The visit will end about 7.00pm. There will be an opportunity to meet Rebecca Upson (Falklands Conservation Native Plants Project Officer), Richard Lewis (Falklands Conservation Invasive Plants Associate), Cynthia Williams (Stanley Growers Nursery Staff), Kit Strange (Kew Alpine Nursery Specialist), Tom Heller (Kew UKOT Seed Bank Officer), Martin Hamilton (Kew UKOT's Programme Co-ordinator), Sara Barrios (Kew UKOT's  Programme GSPC Officer), Marcella Corcoran (Kew UKOT's Programme Horticultural Officer) plus other staff and volunteers involved in the programme. Numbers are limited and priority will be given to those who attended our visit to the Millenium Seed Bank at Wakehurst Place last year - this is a ticket only event.