The programme for 2012 consisted of five indoor meetings held at the Natural History Museum in London, one indoor meeting held at the Bournemouth Natural Sciences Society, seven field meetings and one indoor workshop.
Lectures at indoor meetings in London were given by Rosemary Hill (Shoot first, ask questions later! Molluscs of New Zealand rocky shores), Suzanne Williams (Systematics of the Solariellidae), Bas Payne (Changing distributions, climate change and Conch. Soc. records), Robert Cameron (The Cepaea Megalab project), and Miranda Lowe (Blaschka: glass creatures of the ocean).
The meeting in Bournemouth featured a tour of the museum, and especially its shell and fossil collections. Short presentations were given by John Cresswell on the Bournemouth Natural Sciences Society and by June Chatfield on the Conchological Society, followed by lectures by Graham Long (Some land and freshwater molluscs in the area covered by the BNSS), and by Graham Saunders (Collecting British marine shells).
Field meetings were held at the following venues: Downton Gorge, Herefordshire (terrestrial, leader: Simon Cooter), Titchfield Haven, Hampshire (marine and non-marine, leader: June Chatfield), Rivelin Valley , Yorkshire (terrestrial, joint meeting with Sorby Natural History Society, leader: Robert Cameron), Taff Gorge, Cardiff (terrestrial, joint meeting with Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales, leader: Ben Rowson), Winchester College Nature Reserve and Itchen valley, Hampshire (freshwater and terrestrial, leader: June Chatfield), South Pembrokeshire (4-day marine, leaders: John Llewellyn Jones and Celia Pain) and Wyre Forest, Worcestershire/Shropshire (slugs and fungi,leaders Rosemary Winnall and John Bingham).
The Society's twenty-sixth Molluscan Workshop, which worked on processing and sorting shell sand from Crete, and on the identification of Pisidium spp., was held at Judith Nelson's home in Woking, Surrey.
The Society is grateful to all those people who contributed to the above programme, as speakers, field meeting leaders, and meeting and workshop organisers and tutors.
Bas Payne
Hon. Programme Secretary