Coronavirus and your branch

[nobby]

Hi to all of you,

as we can see here, we all have the same problems.
It is not a British but also a European and even worldwide problem. In Germany all meetings, conventions and plant sales have been cancelled for the next weeks.
We had quite a few invitations to give talks all over Germany and the neighbour countries which have all been cancelled. So we decided to create short presentations that we offer online to all who are interested in such topics.

We asked other people all over Europe to join us and either make a presentation or helping us with translations. In times of Corona virus nearly all borders are closed and we are asked to keep the distance. But on the internet we can keep in touch without fear and we should do this! On our webpage

http://www.netzmanager.de/

you can see what we have published already. We know the very good quality of British speakers and their excellent talks. Thus, we would highly appreciate your engagement.

Join us to turn a time of isolation into a time of inspiration!

Lisi and Nobby

[Peter B]

This seems a good place to put this post. As of immediately following government and society guidelines and to protect myself at my advanced age pot sales will be suspended temporarily. I will watch progress and post when I can see it appropriate to start selling again. For the moment I will say I am closed till July 31st but will update when appropriate. I thank all members who have bought pots since we were able to offer them again and I look forward to renewing the facility.

[David_K]

Northampton and Milton Keynes branch has suspended all meetings until further notice.
Lets hope we can get back to normal as soon as possible.

[JST]

Cornwall Branch have cancelled all meetings for the moment, which includes our annual show. Stay safe everyone

[KathNightingale]

Further to my previous post on 19th March, Luton Branch meetings have now been cancelled for the foreseeable future.

[IvorC]

Manchester branch meeting took place today at the normal date and time for the April meeting but via Zoom. We thank John Arnold for his presentation on his Argentinian Adventures. We had 24 'attendees' including 17 branch members, one of whom is housebound and has not been able to attend a meeting for over 2 years. Several guests joined us including 3 from Glasgow branch and 1 from Macclesfield branch and we are grateful for their help and support in planning this meeting. We were also joined by a former branch member now living in Wales and a guest from Bolivia. Winner of the plant of the month was Jo Adderley. Unfortunately, the raffle was cancelled. Several attendees stayed on to chat for over an hour after the conclusion of the meeting. It appears to have been a success and we hope to continue our branch meetings by this method during lockdown.

[el48tel]

Manchester branch meeting took place today at the normal date and time for the April meeting but via Zoom. We thank John Arnold for his presentation on his Argentinian Adventures. We had 24 'attendees' including 17 branch members, one of whom is housebound and has not been able to attend a meeting for over 2 years. Several guests joined us including 3 from Glasgow branch and 1 from Macclesfield branch and we are grateful for their help and support in planning this meeting. We were also joined by a former branch member now living in Wales and a guest from Bolivia. Winner of the plant of the month was Jo Adderley. Unfortunately, the raffle was cancelled. Several attendees stayed on to chat for over an hour after the conclusion of the meeting. It appears to have been a success and we hope to continue our branch meetings by this method during lockdown.

As an attendee - I echo Ivor's comments - an excellent meeting and I'm looking forward to future ones - thanks for arranging this meeting in this fashion

[Chris L]

Manchester branch meeting took place today at the normal date and time for the April meeting but via Zoom. We thank John Arnold for his presentation on his Argentinian Adventures. We had 24 'attendees' including 17 branch members, one of whom is housebound and has not been able to attend a meeting for over 2 years. Several guests joined us including 3 from Glasgow branch and 1 from Macclesfield branch and we are grateful for their help and support in planning this meeting. We were also joined by a former branch member now living in Wales and a guest from Bolivia. Winner of the plant of the month was Jo Adderley. Unfortunately, the raffle was cancelled. Several attendees stayed on to chat for over an hour after the conclusion of the meeting. It appears to have been a success and we hope to continue our branch meetings by this method during lockdown.

It was brilliant to be able to have a meeting last night via Zoom. As an attendee it appeared to run like clockwork.

I do know, however, from helping Ivor sort out the initial teething problems while setting things up in the week or so before the meeting that a lot of work went on before hand between Ivor and John to make sure the technical side of it worked out OK.

Some of us were using PC's, others laptops and some others iPad's and tablets or smart phones. John, the speaker, was presenting his slides via his iPad, yet we could all see them in brilliant quality.

Thank you again Ivor and John for getting the meeting sorted.

[Rob]

Yes, well done Ivor, Peter, John and all at Manchester, we 'attended' too. Enjoyable evening, although we couldn't stay on as Stig wanted to go for his evening constitutional. We managed to fix our laptop up to the tv to get an even better view.

Looking forward to more of these style meetings.

[Apicra]

I hope I am wrong, but suspect local BCSS branch meetings will be impractical to hold for many months to come, so we are lucky to have BCSS Zoom Presentations, currently weekly, as advertised elsewhere:

https://forum.bcss.org.uk/viewtopic.php ... om#p289581

The C&S Society of America have made many videos of interesting presentations at their biennial national conventions available. On their home page, there are ~twenty ranging from Agaves to Lithops, Brazil to South Africa, Matucanas to Sansevierias, all by internationally known speakers. Cheer yourself up by watching a few!

http://cactusandsucculentsociety.org/

Best wishes,
Derek Tribble