Minutes of the 10^th meeting of SIG held at 7.30 p.m. 11^th February 2003 at Coutts House 

Present: D Skingsley (Secretary), C Slawson (Records Compiler), M Smart, S. Phipps

Apologies:  E Brown, M. Bloxham, R Gillibrand, J Stanney, D Whiteley

No apologies: H Ball, M Webb, T Colshaw, R Tribbeck, M Waterhouse, S McWilliams, A. Pullin, T Beynon, N Collingwood, S Sheppard, B Hardwick, D Emley, J Dover, P Mitchell, P Dedicoat, P Smith.

1) Minutes of the previous meeting were presented and accepted as a true record of events

2) Matters arising from the previous minutes

• The Staffordshire Invertebrate Web Chat Room is still available, and interested parties are encouraged to submit questions, thought, and observations to stimulate debate amongst the members.
• The report on Cotton Dell has not been finalised and the secretary was asked to urgently follow this up with H Ball.
• The position of Chair is still vacant. The Secretary and Records Compiler are temporarily filling this role.
• All invertebrate records should go to the Staffordshire Ecological Record (Email: info@staffs-ecology.org.uk) first and then these can be sent to the County Recorders for confirmation. Many thanks were expressed to those poeple submitting records in this way. A discussion about the format of submissions ensued. SER can supply the MapMate programme  (at a non-profit cost of £20)  which CS consideres to be very useful in submitting data electronically
• The NBN gateway containing SER data has been used to successfully contact CS with regards to invertebate records.
• The City Museum Hanley back catalogue of paper records for the majority of invertebrate families has been placed into SER. This should allow for updated county checklists to be published in the near future.
• The provisional Aculeate check list is available at http://www.staffs-ecology.org.uk/aculeates
  

• Again SIG records make a significant contribution to the overall picture of Staffordshires Faunal diversity. 
• Now included in SER are c3000 mollusc records from R Gillbrand. Many thanks were expressed at the meeting for this effort in getting Staffordshires molluscan records upto date
• Lepidopteran records are being cross checked with Dave Emley in order to focus these records in Staffordshire
• A data-mapping programme (MapMate) is being made available by SER at a cost of £20 to those people agreeing to exchange data with SER
• Link to Staffordshire Ecological Record.

• Primary Focus is on Wolseley Garden Park. SIG hopes to have an invertebrate event sometime in June where we can spend the day looking for invertebrates and using the Trusts new facilities
• Secondary sites of interest are Black Brook, Oakwood (Needwood Forest), Jackson's Coppice and Marsh, Black Firs, Loynton Moss.

• Derek Whiteley asked members if they would be interested in a coming to a SORBY event in  Derbyshire (Greensides Farm SK0768)? Contact Derek for more information derek@kangaroo92.freeserve.co.uk.
• Licenses for collecting by SIG on SWT reserves will be available following approval  from Helen Gee
• Permissions are to be saught with regards to siting a Malaise Trap at Wolseley.