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IT
WAS 50 YEARS AGO TODAY! Little
could they have known that the seeds they were
sowing would grow so much over the years.
They set out with the aim of attracting 100 members – and now the
Trust has over 16,000! And
their first year’s accounts show a total income of £16 16s 1d, compared
with Warwickshire Wildlife Trust’s 2006 accounts where the income totals
over £2.7Million. At
its start the charity had no nature reserves at all – but now
Warwickshire Wildlife Trust protects 55 nature reserves totaling over
2,000 acres throughout Warwickshire, Unfortunately
none of the founding fathers is still alive to share the celebrations, but
current staff and volunteers gathered on Wednesday 6 June 2007 to cut a
special ‘50 Years Old’ Birthday Cake and drink a toast to their
memory. Speaking
at the event, Trust Chief Executive Dr Andy Tasker said:
“It gives me great pleasure to be here at Warwickshire Wildlife
Trust’s 50th Birthday, and to honour the eight people who set
up the charity all those years ago. What
they did should remain an inspiration to us today, because they saw the
changes happening to our precious natural environment, and decided to try
to do something about it. They didn’t just talk about it – they did
something!“ “Most
of the pressures facing wildlife in their day were exactly the same as we
still find now – pressures from development and from agricultural
intensification – but we now have the additional unknown of climate
change to contend with.” “The
key message that our founding fathers left behind is that you can make a
difference. By setting up the
charity Warwickshire Wildlife Trust they made a difference.
Without their foresight we’d have lost a lot more of our woods,
meadows and wetlands. The many
staff, volunteers and members of the charity over the years since then
have all made a difference too.
And I hope many more will join the Trust to celebrate them and take
their message forwards.” Anyone
wanting to join the charity should contact Warwickshire Wildlife Trust by
phoning for a Membership Pack on 024 7630 8999 or by visiting either of
the Trust’s two Visitor Centres at Brandon Marsh Nature Centre, Brandon
Lane, Coventry, CV3 3GW or the Parkridge Centre, Brueton Park, Solihull,
B91 3DT or visiting us on the web at www.wkwt.org.uk
FURTHER NOTES FOR EDITORS The
charity incorporated on 6 June 1957 was called ‘The
West Midlands Trust for Nature Conservation
Ltd’ and it covered the area of
Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Staffordshire, Towards
the end of the 1960s, the West Midlands Trust for Nature Conservation
broke up following the decision of the committee in Worcestershire
to pull out and set up a separate Trust.
This was viewed as ‘catastrophic‘ by the remaining Council
members, as the coherence of the whole was then destroyed, but ultimately
it led to a more local delivery and accountability.
In
the short term, the remaining two counties carried on but in 1969 Staffordshire
separated to become an independent Trust, leaving the remnants to
become Warwickshire Nature Conservation Trust or ‘Warnact’ in Autumn 1970. All
the original West Midlands Trust documents remain with Warwickshire Wildlife Trust to this day. The
eight original subscribers of
the Trust were: Fred
Shotton of Derek
Woods of Jocelyn
Morris, curator of David
Hughes of Guy
Capper of F.
Fincher of Bromsgrove, a Naturalist E.J.
Wenham of Worcester, a Lecturer R.C.
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