We enjoyed an excellent and most informative talk by Michael Walker of the Nottinghamshire Bat Group which was supported by a selection of images. We were told about the numerous types, sizes and locations of bats, both in the British Isles and also some from around the world. The habitats of bats was explained, this leading us to the importance of habitats in the wild and the need for instance, for bats to have hedgerows to follow in flight. It was explained that we can play our part in helping these fascinating nocturnal animals by having gardens which support lots of insects for the bats to feed on. The group has been succesful in getting Heritage Lottery Funding for a 3 year project to ‘map’ bats in Nottinghamshire.

As a society, it was agreed that we could no doubt help in this cause by inviting our members to consider having a ‘bat detector’ in their gardens for a few days. Volunteers would be contacted, possibly from April or May next year to arrange for a detector to be placed in their garden. If you are interested in taking part in this project please contact us and we will then decide on the best way forward in conjunction with the Nottinghamshire Bat Group.

The speaker, on a number of occasions, referred to bats flying around Lowdham cricket field during the late summer evenings. Having played and been heavily involved in Lowdham cricket club over many years, it was only at the end of the talk that I realised I knew the speaker, he used to sell cricket ‘bats’!!

Once again that time of year has arrived for those keen gardeners, and also novice gardeners, to plan ahead and look forward to 2016 in our gardens, allotments, courtyards, window boxes and those other pieces of ground which I can’t think of at the moment.

As a benefit to our members, we are offering the substantial discount (50%) on seeds and plants which are ordered through the Society from Suttons. Furthermore, a 10% discount is available on other garden equipment in the Suttons catalogue.

If placing an order this year, would you please return the order forms by Monday 7th December 2015 to the Society.

So come on, place an order and have a go at ‘grow your own’ and perhaps you may then decide to enter some of the results as exhibits in one of next years shows.