On Friday 6th June we arrived at The Lodge - it was a beautiful day:
On arriving in the reception area we met Mike, Mrs T and Maurice Tse-Laurence - once we were signed in we headed for a quiet spot in the garden to chat about the Community and some of the problems. The excellent Mrs T (Claire) had come equipped with a note pad and pen (thankfully, as we hadn't) and we put some of our points and questions to Claire and Maurice:
We learned one thing affecting the site speed considerably is at certain times of day the site sends out news to people who have subscribed to that service - the chances are that when the site slows right down it is trying to cope with running the Community and sending out news at the same time.
The Community is, to a degree, a victim of its own success - when it was first started the RSPB genuinely had no inkling of how many people would take to it, and the reality took them by surprise. They were delighted at the level of success but have struggled to keep up with the sheer amount of information to appear. We suggested they needed to make more use of the Community as we think it is a perfect way to show off the RSPB and its work.
We discussed archiving as a way to potentially create more space for newer posts and photos - Mike commented that Rutland Water had successfully done this with its older blogs - the main concern was how much to archive, and where to put the archived material. It was also suggested that past post of users who no longer post on the Community might be archived. We also expressed a wish that the archived material should be accessible in some way. Claire and Maurice said they would look into this.
We brought up the recent survey which appeared on the Technical Difficulties thread - happily, Maurice had already tweaked this so you can tell it what problem is being experienced. We have personally found it useful.
Glitches like posts and threads disappearing and reappearing, missing reply buttons, rich formatting and error messages are all being looked into - we are awaiting a response.
As to communication levels - the problem is that there aren't too many people at the head office to regularly post on the threads, which leaves teams like IT having to choose between sorting the problems or talking to us.
We also brought up the subject of Good Egg Awards - Claire and Maurice couldn't think of any good reason these had been stopped and they both felt that special posts should be recognised. We look forward to hearing to a response on that one.
Finally we raised the dreaded question of whether the Community will continue to exist as part of the RSPB's website. The impression we were given was that both Claire and Maurice were in favour of the Community continuing but we were not given a definite yes or no answer. I think it's possible that this is being discussed at a higher level.
At this point I would like to give our sincere thanks to Claire and Maurice for making time to meet us all to discuss our points - they are clearly very busy so it was very much appreciated by the three of us! We would also like to congratulate Claire on her well-deserved promotion. Clare (my wife) and I would also like to thank Mike for joining us - he actually stayed overnight in the area so he could accompany us. His input was most valuable and very appreciated.
We will follow this up in the future as and when more answers appear.
We did take a while to have a quick look at this very beautiful reserve - poor Limpy was tired out by then and needed a lift:
"Birds are, quite simply, little miracles - and as such they require care and consideration."
Magnus Ullman
My Flickr account is here
Thank you all for your efforts and giving of your time. It is much appreciated and I look forward to your visit bearing fruit. Thanks too to Clair and Maurice for making themselves available that day. I so much hope the community continues and that issues can be resolved.
Claire has said she will be talking about the Good Egg awards with the other Mods this week - she can't yet say how soon she can answer any of the other issues.
Seriously, thank you very much Clare, Limpy and Mike for giving your time to our problems and actually doing something, and thank you to MrsT and Maurice for listening.
IMAGICAT
My thanks too to you LIMPY, CLARE and MIKE, for taking the problems experienced by most of us at some time or another, to the LODGE, and to MRS T and MAURICE for giving up their valuable time to listen and hopefully to resolve some of the issues. I think the Community, and certainly the tiny bit that I regularly use has really helped to feed and grow my passion of ospreys and being able to follow the nest each season is a absolute joy.
Birdie's DU Summaries 2018 https://www.imagicat.com/
Thank you (all) for taking the time to try to resolve some of the issues which we encounter and for raising some salient points on behalf of the Community.
Unicum arbustum haud alit duos erithacos
(One bush does not shelter two Robins)
Zenodotus (3rd Century B.C.)
The big question has got to be: did we miss anything obvious?
Our herring gulls are red listed birds. Think about that the next time you hear some flaming idiot calling for a cull of them.
Thank you to all for taking the time to meet to discuss the problems experienced on the Community. It really is greatly appreciated. Pleased that you had a beautiful meeting room to sit in!
Clare: I can't think of anything obvious that you missed. I think you covered everything that concerns the regular users.
Thanks to all who gave up their time to discuss the community and the problems. Hopefully thing will get sorted in time. This is a wonderful place and would be sadly missed, so hope it will not come to that.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Claire, did Mrs T and the rest of the staff, that is the 3 of you who you met, not give you a guided tour of the big stately mansion itself? That's the house at The Lodge reserve where all the staff work. I know they do very occasionally, about 1 day a year, do have guided pre booked tours of the house itself on open days, where a historian describes the house and it's history and these pre booked tours happen about 1 day a year on a weekend when the staff are not at work in the house. Anyway thanks for going to see Mrs T and the rest of the staff about our worries about the forum. I hope the RSPB don't close this forum, as it's excellent to discuss birds, other wildlife and conservation in general. It's the first thing I do every morning and evening is to look at these forum pages and it's like talking with friends who have the same interests.
Regards,
Ian.
We had not booked a tour and none of us had time for one. Both Clare and I would really like to go back and see more of the building if we ever get the chance.