Hi Visitor

Some Christmas wishes, and a couple of announcements

First of all, I know Yolande has already sent out a Christmas card, but I'd just like to personally wish all our members a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and a prosperous New Year.

We have had a couple of changes on the Council. Dr Dave Edge, during his long tenure as treasurer, got the Society's finances onto a firm, well budgeted footing. But he has done a lot more than that. Since his move to Knysna he was part of the team that succeeded in saving the last colony of the Brenton Blue Orachrysops niobe. Studying for an MSc in Environmental Science at North-West University, then a PhD, Dave has carried out several important studies on this and other threatened species.

Dave was one of the leading lights in the SABCA programme, and one of the outcomes of this (and the Red Data Book published earlier) was a list of threatened butterfly species in SA. He has been instrumental in setting up COREL (Custodians Of Rare and Endangered Lepidoptera), whose objective is to secure the future of these butterflies (and moths) through targeted study and funded conservation efforts. This is a major task - plans and budgets have to be drafted by the team of Custodians, which Dave leads.

It became obvious that we could not expect Dave to take this responsibility on board whilst still running the finances. So the Council looked around for a successor, and Peter Sharland kindly agreed to take on the challenging job of Treasurer. As you will no doubt be aware, LepSoc has over the past year or two moved into the electronic age, and we are still in the process of perfecting our management of membership and subscriptions via the site. One of Peter's main objectives is to manage a smooth completion of this difficult transition.

So I take pleasure in on behalf of the Council thanking Dave for his efforts, and wishing him the best for the COREL programme. I am sure we will all hear more about this in the near future. Likewise, we thank Peter for accepting the finance portfolio, and welcome him to the Council.

Whilst on the subject of finance, Peter and I have been discussing an issue that we have had a lot of questions about recently - due date for subscriptions. LepSoc Africa's subscriptions have always fallen due on 31 December but in the past we were quite flexible about this; many members preferring to pay at the annual Conference.

Electronic membership management, however, means that we cannot retain this flexibility. When we started the site, all who were members on 17 December 2010 were uploaded, and their 2010/11 membership expires at midnight on 31 December 2011. Because of the delay in sending out this notice, we have given these members an extra month's grace in which to renew their subscriptions.

What this means is, that if you were a member prior to 17 December 2011, and you have not paid your subscriptions this year, you need to do this by 31 January 2012. You can do this by accessing the site and going to the My Payments tab under User Menu on the left - which takes you to this page http://www.lepsoc.org.za/index.php?option=com_acctexp&task=subscriptiondetails&sub=overview.

Click on Upgrade/Renew and a page comes up allowing you to choose between Credit Card and Bank Deposit. The Credit Card option is there to allow non-SA members an easy way to pay and avoids the sky-high offshore deposit fees our banks charge. However for local deposits the Society has to pay a bigger fee to 2Checkout than we do to our bank, so please would SA members use Bank Deposit.

For the many new members who joined during 2011, we are still in the process of finalising our membership renewal policy and messaging method. We are considering a half- or quarter-yearly payment system so that people joining through the year are not compromised, and at year end fall into step with the 31 December annual subscription date. We intend to make the position clear by the end of January 2012.

If you have queries, please e-mail me at steve.woodhall@sos.co.za, or Peter at sharlandp@gmail.com.

To conclude, we appeal to all of you to renew your subscriptions. We have a big programme of conservation work planned for 2012, and cannot do this without your valued support.

Yours sincerely

Steve Woodhall

President - Lepidopterists' Society of Africa