Our meetings are to help beginners learn their mosses and liverworts, rather than high-powered recording sessions. Please bring sandwiches to all outdoor meetings, which are on Sundays, starting at 10.30 am. Note that the meeting in January is indoors on a Friday.

You are very welcome to suggest venues for future outdoor meetings; please include grid references and details for parking.

January 16th (Friday)
Indoor meeting in the Education Room at the new Museum and Resource Centre in Ludlow, 10.30 am to 4.30 pm. Please book with Mark Lawley (see below) if you wish to come to this meeting. There will be no curriculum for the day. Rather, the day will be devoted to helping resolve your microscopical problems - procedures you find difficult, and plants you cannot identify. Please let me know when you book which techniques you want to practise, and bring with you:-

The new Library and Museum Resource Centre lies to the rear of the Feathers hotel and Somerfield supermarket. To reach it, leave the A49 at the roundabout where the A4117 from Kidderminster meets the A49. Go along Henley Road for about half a mile, and turn left into Gravel Hill (Raven pub on the corner). At the traffic lights, turn right into Station Drive and then immediately left into the car park. The new Museum and Resource Centre is the modern building near the far right corner of the car park. It costs £3 to park for the day. However, there is no charge for using the Museum’s facilities. Enter the building from the west side (near Parkway shops). The Museum is to the left of the foyer. W e will be using the Education Room on the top floor. There is a lift. We will have lunch at a pub in town (no food is permitted in the Museum).

February 15th
Roundton Hill, near Church Stoke, south-east Montgomeryshire. Turn right off the A489 east of Church Stoke up a lane to Old Church Stoke. Following brown “Nature Reserve” signs, turn right and immediately sharp right again, and then right down a track across a shallow ford and park in a small car park at the foot of Roundton Hill (SO 292947). Roundton Hill is a Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust reserve with a varied flora known to include (or have included) several rare species, including Grimmia laevigata, Tortula canescens and Weissia sterilis. We will be making ourselves most useful if we can confirm the continuing presence of any of these species on Roundton. There are also a number of other local species present, such as lush colonies of Rhodobryum roseum.

March 14th
The Ring, north Radnorshire. Park in the lay-by on the B4355 at SO 118836. Calcareous flushes and rocks in a shallow gorge near the source of the River Teme will present us with a variety of lime-loving species.

April 1st-7th
We have invited the BBS to join us for this week-long meeting based at Malvern. Link, from where we shall explore numerous sites in Worcestershire (woods and dingles along the Teme valley, the Malvern Hills, Bredon Hill, arable sites, etc.). For further details, contact Tessa Carrick, Nuthatch, Moors Farm, Lakeside Court, Upton Warren, Bromsgrove, B61 7EY; tel: 01527 87135; email: tessa@carrickt.fsnet.co.uk Apart from being good fun, this meeting will be a wonderful opportunity for beginners to learn from skilled bryologists.

Mark Lawley, 12A Castleview Terrace, Ludlow, SY8 2NG. Tel: 01584 876564. Email: m.lawley@virgin.net