Norfolk Wildlife Forum

What’s the Norfolk Wildlife email discussion forum for?

It’s good to talk, or so they say. If you’re interested in Norfolk and its wildlife then the chances are you enjoy discussing your sightings with other like-minded folk, perhaps at a field meeting or after a NNNS talk. In these days of the internet, however, there is a way to talk with other enthusiasts every day, whenever you feel like it.

Since 2000, an ever-increasing band of naturalists have been discussing their findings by using the email discussion forum norfolk-wildlife. This is extremely easy to use, open to everyone and, best of all, it’s completely free – simply register with the group and then any email you send will be sent to all the other members, and you’ll see any messages that they send too.

Imagine you’d been out for the day and had seen large numbers of a distinctive beetle, but you didn’t know what it was. You could send a message to the forum, describing it, or even display a digital photo you’d taken of it to the forum members – chances are that someone else on the group will be able to identify it and get back to you, and you are free to do the same for other people. Whether you want to actively contribute or are happy just to sit back and read the postings and responses of other members, learning more about Norfolk’s wildlife in the process, the forum has something to offer everyone.

The forum already has 150 members, of all backgrounds, ages and levels of expertise – as more people subscribe, the more useful the resource becomes.

How do I join?

• Go to the norfolk-wildlife Yahoo! Groups page.
• Click on the blue “Join This Group!” button.
• If you’ve already got a “Yahoo ID” then simply enter this and your password and your request to join the group will be sent.

If you’ve not used a Yahoo e-mail group before, then click on “Sign Up”. You’ll need to fill in the various questions to gain your ID and password, then you’ll be able to send a request to join the group.

Once your request has been sent to the group, the group moderator (currently Andy Musgrove) will approve your membership. Don’t worry about this apparently formal procedure – it is just a useful step to ensure that only people with a genuine interest in the wildlife of Norfolk join the group, and it keeps out unwanted advertising.

If you have any problems in joining the group, just send an e-mail to the forum moderator and he will help you to sign up.

FAQs

Will I get lots of junk emails if I join?

No. People likely to send junk e-mails are not admitted to the group. If someone got through to the group and started sending unwanted or inappropriate messages, they would be removed from the group immediately.

Will I have hundreds of messages from members clogging up my Inbox?

This doesn’t have to be a worry. Currently, there are only an average of about two messages per day, so it would have to increase greatly before being a problem for anyone. However, even if it does, you can choose a “daily digest” instead, which means you just receive one e-mail per day which contains all the day’s messages bundled together.

Also, if you’re particularly interested in moths…

… there’s a separate yahoo group set up just for discussion of Norfolk’s moths, partly because so much of the discussion on the wider norfolk-wildlife group was concerned with moths. If you’re interested in joining this group as well then go to the Norfolk Moth Survey Yahoo! Groups page.