Contacts
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About the Herts Moth GroupThe group is an entirely voluntary gathering of people of all ages and from all walks of life, including both professionals and amateurs, who have an interest in moths in the English county of Hertfordshire. We operate on first name terms. There is no committee, no chair person, no "leader", although the group is largely organised and run by Colin Plant, the formal moth recorder for Hertfordshire and Middlesex.There is no subscription - we depend entirely upon donations and sponsorship. If you wish to make a donation or to sponsor our activities, please contact We organise a series of field trips throughout the year. These are open to all. These trips have a double purpose. Most people come along to learn how to identify moths and to have an enjoyable evening with like-minded people. On the serious side, they are recording trips, contributing data towards the proposed book on Hertfordshire moths. Apart from not allowing dogs (because of all the electric cables used to power the traps), the only rule is that people should enjoy themselves. Although the trips start at around dusk it is not necessary for people to stay all night so if you have to leave early it is no problem. We also have a single indoor meeting each year, usually in March. This is open to all, admission is free, and it is usually very well attended. This is usually on a Saturday and occupies the whole day, with one or two guest speakers in the morning followed by an informal session with exhibits and displays after lunch. Attendance is open to anyone who cares to turn up. We also produce a newsletter, and these are also available on this web site. To receive paper copy of the newsletter you need to send your postal address to If you also send your e-mail address to Colin then you can be added to the electronic mailing list - receiving occasional updates on events, latest news, etc. (removal from this list can be requested at any time). There is also a Yahoo discussion group that you can join (or leave at any time). To avoid misuse of the discussion group by SPAM mailing companies etc, applications to join the discussion group must be individually approved and so you must join as a member of the group first, by e-mailing . The discussion group only carries text-only messages, and all attachments are automatically deleted - which means that it is not possible to receive computer viruses etc via the group. If you click on the County Moth List button above you will be able to download the latest version of the list of moths recorded from Hertfordshire. As custodians of the Hertfordshire Moth database, we are able to provide validated data on moths in the county (not butterflies - sorry). This data is freely available to all who wish to use it, as we believe that scientific information should be shared without prejudice. However, we may make a charge for labour involved in collating and/or analysing the data if the person asking for it is a professional or if it will be used for any form of financial gain. All enquiries must come via .
Sponsorship and donationsThe concept of a natural history group that provides a service to members who are not required to pay any subscription is a radically different approach to such membership. Interestingly, we are increasing our membership numbers at a time when almost all other natural history related societies are in a long-term membership decline. However, this system depends entirely upon the goodwill and altruism of sponsors and other benefactors. If you are a business or other commercial concern and would like to help in the running of our activities by making a financial contribution or by an action in kind please contact .We are talking really rather small sums of money in business terms. For example, a donation of £100 would cover the cost of lost and damaged equipment (e.g., broken mercury vapour bulbs) for a year and £200 would pay the costs of petrol to run the generators required to power lights on field trips for an entire year. £700 would buy us a new portable generator. £1000 would buy a top of the range digital camera so we can take photographs of things that might eventually be used in the book on Hertfordshire moths (or even make a significant dent in the coffee budget on our nocturnal field trips!).
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