daveq

It was limited to (I think) 10 attendees at Kew's request. We will try to organise further visits in future and will give priority to people who haven't previously attended.

Hi folks Apologies, this is my error - I hadn't realised that you wouldn't be able to reply to the announcement and although I'd watched that post for replies, I missed the new thread here. Thanks for your suggestions also, we will definitely take these into account before deciding on any next steps. Best Dave

Hi folks As you know, this forum is maintained and funded by the Carnivorous Plant Society, a UK charity. We have done a lot of work this year to reduce the forum costs - re-platforming to much cheaper hosting, removing unnecessary customisations and bringing the application of updates to the site in-house rather than paying a third party to do it. However maintaining the forum still costs the charity about £200 each year. As trustees of the charity we have been considering whether this continues to be a good use of the Society's funds. The vast majority of activity on the forum these days is EU plant sales (effectively providing a free marketplace for sellers), from which the charity receives no revenue and which does not contribute to the charity's purposes. Most discussion, news, and sharing of advice etc. has naturally migrated to social media where the Society also has a presence and which does not incur hosting/management costs. While some have commented previously that they don't want to use (e.g.) Facebook and there should be more discussion here, that's not something we are really in control of. Unfortunately there is a negative feedback loop whereby as the amount of genuine discussion here reduces, people visit less frequently, and therefore the amount of discussion reduces further. What are your views on the future of the forum? Here are some options we could consider: Close the forum and delete the content Close the forum and archive the forum content (from the categories of enduring interest, e.g. not sales) to a static platform so it continues to be available, but without the ability to create new posts (this would require some work but would significantly reduce future costs) Introduce a charging mechanism so that those posting for plant sales are contributing to the running costs We welcome your ideas.

Hi folks For what it's worth, we're still here 😉 It's not hugely visible but we've actually put quite a bit of work into the forum this year behind the scenes. We've moved it to new self-managed hosting to reduce ongoing costs and we've been through a fairly time-consuming effort to bring it through a series of upgrades as it had fallen some way behind the latest version of the forum software. We've also made improvements to the database, fixed various UI issues such as broken mobile views where text overlapped all over the place, and tightened up security to reduce spam posts. During the same period we've completely overhauled the main website including a new system to manage the seedbank and make the listings more informative and more up-to-date. There's a stack of further work we'd like to do over the coming year to improve the Society's online presence, some of which ties in with the forum. On the technical side, I'd like to review the forum theme to integrate it better with the design of the website, create more interconnections between the website content and the forum, and look at revising the member ranking / badges etc. to give Society members (who are contributing to its upkeep through their membership) recognition in the forum. Content wise we're keen to share engaging and informative material across all our channels. The reality is that the big social media platforms are more widely used and in many ways more accessible to the general public than traditional Web forums. So yes, we will put stuff onto those channels - not just Facebook, but also Instagram and Twitter (if it's still there 😅) - where it's easy to engage people with the charity. But we'll also try to be more consistent in sharing things here too; that's a fair criticism. A general concern for me personally is how we convert engagement online into actual memberships of the Society. We have 850+ group members on the private Facebook group but probably fewer than a third of those have joined the CPS itself. We have over 4000 forum members here (a few hundred active) but a tiny minority of those are Society members, and some of those who are most active here as sellers, for example, haven't ever joined the Society as far as I can tell. It's obviously not realistic to expect everyone - or even most people - we engage online to sign up as a paying member, and there are probably lots of reasons why people might not have felt like joining or staying in the CPS in recent years. As a committee we're doing our best to nudge things along in the right direction and hopefully over time you'll see the results of that.

Thanks Marcel I would be very grateful to hear (by direct message or via email to [email protected]) from anyone who is planning on attending this year's conference and who might be willing to share any highlights, observations, anecdotes or photos from their trip for the Newsletter or Journal of the (British) CPS.

Hi folks I have made some changes this morning to amend various CSS customisations that had been applied to the site themes by a professional developer previously engaged by the CPS. It appears that these customisations were causing a number of issues in the responsive (mobile) view of the site. Specifically, I've removed the fixed header height on forum pages so the introductory text doesn't spill over the topic listings. I believe this addresses the (two-year-old!) problems described here: I've also reworked the changes that I think were introduced to fix complaints here: ...which were causing various elements in the top bar (logo, menu, icons) to overlap one another. I've tested these changes with various device profiles and it all seems to be working OK - but please let me know if you spot any issues.

Hi folks This morning I have made a change to the forum settings to make our profile options more inclusive. The gender field, which was mandatory on registration and displayed on all posts, is now removed. It is replaced by a new pronouns field which allows members to choose which pronouns they'd prefer others to use when addressing them. I've made this change for two reasons. Firstly, the existing gender field - which only gave options for 'Male', 'Female' or 'Not telling' - reflects what many would consider an outdated binary perspective on gender identity. Secondly, from a privacy perspective we have no legitimate need to hold gender information when our practical purpose (knowing how to refer to each other) can be achieved by asking about pronoun preference. The pronouns field is mandatory on registration (with an option for 'Prefer not to say'). Existing members, please consider updating your profile so that your preference is displayed for the benefit of others. Hopefully it goes without saying that you should respect the pronoun preferences expressed by others, regardless of your personal views on gender identity.

The hosting account changes are now complete. We have also performed some overdue maintenance which it was not possible to carry out under the previous hosting arrangements. Specifically this included: Upgrading PHP from version 7.3 to 8.1 (the previous version was 9 months past end-of-life and was preventing upgrades of the forum software) Converting the database to use utf8mb4 character encoding, which should provide better handling of special characters incl. emojis Upgrading the forum software to the latest version (the last upgrade was more than a year ago) You should hopefully notice performance and functionality enhancements with these upgrades. In due course we also have some further database tweaks to make which should further improve performance and site reliability. If you spot anything that doesn't seem to be working correctly, please reply here.

We will shortly be initiating some changes to the hosting arrangements for the forum. The transfer is expected to be straightforward as the underlying infrastructure provider is staying the same (it's mostly an administrative change to the management of the account, domain etc.). However there is the possibility of some disruption over the next week or so. We will of course do everything we can to keep this to a minimum.

Whilst English is the primary language on the forum I don't think it's a major problem that the document is in Slovenian. I should imagine that's appropriate to the target audience.

Hi James, sorry for the slow response. If this is for the Carnivorous Plant Society website (thecps.org.uk) there isn't a forgot password option but if you could email [email protected] I can verify your membership details and get credentials sent to you. The new website will be much better in this regard!

Hi linuxman, Over the past year or two there have unfortunately been a large number of enquiries that I fear have gone unanswered. I can only apologise for that situation, which pre-dates my involvement with the Society and is one of the reasons I volunteered to help. I'm not sure when your enquiry was sent, but for what it's worth I have taken over the Enquiries role as of a few weeks ago and I'm reasonably confident that all enquiries sent to the Society since then have been answered promptly. If you'd like to re-send your enquiry either via the contact form or by email to [email protected] I'll look into this for you.

Thanks for the work you've put into this. I'll look at the best way to address these issues and get back to you.

Thanks for your comments AKR. We're working on a new website which will include a different format for the seedbank. We'll try to make sure any errors or ambiguities are caught as part of that work. In the meantime if there's any particular ones that are giving concern, please let me know and I'll see whether I can correct them. For donated seed we're reliant on the information provided by the donor. I gather that seedbank donations have reduced significantly over recent years, so I'm not sure if placing further restrictions on donations would be helpful. One change we are planning with the new website is to give clearer information about the provenance of seed and the expectations for donations, which we hope will help to some extent.

This change has now been made, a little later than advertised (sorry!) You will now need to login using your registered email address rather than your display name.

I have now locked the other thread about the UK CPS as it had run to over 100 replies. If you have ideas, suggestions, or comments feel free to add them here and we'll ensure they're seen by the Committee. For questions specific to your own membership, payments, seed bank orders etc. you can email [email protected].

Posted on behalf of the Carnivorous Plant Society Est. 1978. Registered Charity number 281423 (Registered 1981) Dear Members, First of all, I would like to thank those of you that attended the virtual AGM on Saturday 28th May. It was a pleasure to meet you and to hear your contributions. I thought it would be a great idea to keep you informed of what's happening behind the scenes, as the Society belongs to you - the members. Therefore our intention is to issue a "From The Chair" (or Vice-Chair) update at least once a quarter. AGM Update The Committee held a meeting in the morning before the AGM. The Treasurer presented the accounts for the last financial year. The Committee could not vote on passing them due to questions on the allocation of payments, which need to be resolved first. During the Committee meeting, our Acting Chair, Treasurer, Librarian and Trustee announced that he wanted to step down with immediate effect. The Committee proposed a vote of thanks at the AGM to Phil Wilson for all his hard work over the years. At the AGM, Trustees and Committee members were elected as follows: Ian Ladd - Trustee and Vice Chair (acting Chair) Fiona Wowra - Trustee and Secretary Debra Blackburn - Membership Secretary Ben Morris - Events Organiser Ian Jones - Newsletter Editor Stephen Morley - Conservation Officer Francesco Gorni - Deputy Conservation Officer Dave Quarrell - Internet and Enquiries Officer Fiona Wowra, who has been a great stalwart of the Society, announced that she intends to step down at the next AGM from her roles of Secretary and Trustee. Fiona has recently spent over 150 hours of her time re-sorting the Seed Bank after it had been handed between different volunteers in quick succession; she has now ensured that everything is arranged in a logical and manageable order. Fiona has a great deal of respect within the Society and will be greatly missed. We are very grateful to Fiona for giving us another year of her time and experience. Management Committee and Trustees It must be said that the past two years have been a difficult time for the Society. Various Committee members and Trustees stepped down, others were unwell and therefore unable to fulfil their duties, which led to the Society being unable to operate at full strength. Thank you to everyone who stood by us. I can now say, with great confidence, that we have strengthened the Society with the additional Committee members. They are committed to making your Society a first-class organisation. We are putting together a document called “Know Your Committee” which will include a brief resume for each committee member and how to contact them if you have any queries. We aim to send this to you in the next four to six weeks. SGM As noted at the AGM, the Committee are planning a Special General Meeting to be announced in the next few weeks. The first reason for this is to approve the following as Trustees: Ian Jones Debra Blackburn Dave Quarrell These new Trustees will be a great addition to the existing Trustees and give the Society additional expertise and resilience. The second reason is to propose replacing our existing Governing Document with one based on the model constitution for a Society of our type approved by the Charity Commission. The current document has been difficult to interpret, and in some places, it contradicts itself. We will circulate the Governing Document to you, the members, in plenty of time before the SGM to read and digest it. New Policies You, the members, are the Society's soul. Our charity must be an environment where everybody feels that they are included, able to speak up without fear, and to make suggestions or comments without feeling bullied or harassed. To this end, I am currently preparing an Anti-Bullying and Harassment Policy that will protect everyone within our Society. We will also have an Equality Policy. We will welcome everyone regardless of colour, race, nationality, ethnic or national origin, religion, sex or sexual orientation, marital status, gender, disability, political opinion, family status, or age. Further details of these policies will be provided in due course. Finances Following the AGM it also came to light that the accounts submitted to the Charity Commission for the year 2020 - 2021 contained some errors. The stated loss of £35.25 was incorrect; we actually made a loss of £250.95. Our bank balance was also incorrectly reported as £16,086.30; the correct figure was £15,086.55. Systems are now being put in place to ensure that the Society's finances are monitored, correctly prepared and independently checked before being presented to you, the members and the Charity Commission. Membership Over the last couple of years, our membership has reduced to 246 paid up members. I intend to increase the appeal of membership by adding additional content to a newly invigorated website that had already been approved last year, along with our core values of Education, Cultivation and Conservation. On Facebook, for example, we have over 4,500 people that have expressed an interest in our Society. We will aim to try and convert some of these people into fully paid up members. Schools Program We are considering a pilot education program for schools. Initially, approximately 10-15 schools where we will provide seeds, compost, growing instructions and ongoing support to the school throughout the year. The aim is to encourage our young people to be interested in Carnivorous Plants and expand these not just at school but also at home. We would look to offer a Schools membership to our website, where the teacher would be able to access and download information etc., for their class. This idea is still in its infancy and we will, of course, keep you up to date on how this goes. Technology Along with a new website to be launched shortly, the Committee is also introducing other technology to improve the running of the Society. We have nearly completed migration of all Committee communications and document management to Microsoft Office 365, under a free non-profit subscription arranged by Ian Jones. This will make it easier to organise the Committee’s business and provide greater security and resilience. We are also looking in the very near future to move our membership database from an existing offline setup to a professionally hosted platform, specifically designed for membership administration. This should significantly improve the management of memberships, subscription payments, reminders etc. and eliminate some of the difficulties we have experienced with these aspects over recent years. Get In Touch Finally, if you have any ideas or comments, good or bad. Please don't hesitate to contact me at [email protected]. Thank you for your continued support, and I look forward to hearing from you. Ian Ladd Vice Chair (acting Chair) of the Carnivorous Plant Society

The AGM invite gave very clear instructions about the need to register and how to do so. I don't think the situation you're describing is very likely at all.

The current governing document for the society requires that members wishing to attend the AGM register to do so and have their request approved. So it was necessary for us to send the link only to those who had correctly registered. I apologise to anyone who found this confusing or unhelpful.

Sorry for slow response, I didn't get notified that I'd been mentioned here for some reason. The [email protected] mailbox is now being actively monitored, so please direct any queries there and we'll make sure you get a response as promptly as possible.

Hi folks A quick introduction. I'm Dave, and I've recently taken over the role of Internet Officer for the Carnivorous Plant Society. That comes with responsibility for managing the CPUK Forum as well as the CPS website and various other bits and pieces. I haven't previously been an active member of this forum although I have referred to it for cultivation advice from time to time. I do have some experience looking after other forums and I'll do my best to keep this one in good shape. The Society has been through a bit of a rough patch over the past few years. I'm one of a number of new members of the Management Committee who are working to get things back into smooth operation and to provide a better experience for the Society's members. CPS members should have received notification of the AGM which is being held at the end of May via Zoom - we'd really appreciate your participation to help us set a positive direction for the Society over the coming year. If you haven't received an invitation, please let me know and I'll look into it. I look forward to supporting your community :)

Hi everyone To align with recommended security practices, we'll be changing the login method for the CPUK forum on 1st June 2022. Currently you login using your display name. From 1st June, you'll be asked to login using your registered email address instead. This makes it a bit harder for malicious actors to compromise accounts, since the emails associated with valid accounts aren't public information. This won't cause any other changes to your CPUK account. Your existing password etc. will still be valid.