Ten days ago or so, I joined the Hawk and Owl Trust at the Bird Fair, and a while later an envelope full of interesting information arrived as a consequence of my membership. It included a car sticker, a membership card and badge. These things made me quite nostalgic.
I can remember my kestrel-shaped YOC badge of decades ago, and I used to have a car sticker that announced my RSPB membership to the world, but both the car sticker and the yellow Ford Sierra on which it sat are long gone.
There is quite a lot of talk about whether ‘membership’ is an out-dated concept – or at least whether this generation of people interested in nature are less interested in ‘joining’ an organisation. We talk more about ‘supporters’ these days and there are a variety of ways to support an organisation – or a cause.
And there was a time when every secondhand car you bought might come with its own collection of stickers which told you something of its ownership history. you must, some of you at least, remember all those WWF panda logos on the back of cars, and a fair few Avocets to accompany them (though rarely, in my experience, were both found on the same car).
Are we less keen on being ‘members’ these days? And are we less keen on displaying our membership as publicly as we did?
Should environmental NGOs come together and send out ‘Green Blob’ car stickers for us all to sport?
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Tut tut Mark!
Car stickers are removeable and recyclable don’t you know. Most of mine have been on four cars at least, and I don’t change cars frequently.
My car stickers are on my front door. They are Derbyshire Wildlife Trust, Buglife, RSPB “I’m giving nature a home”, and on the car, a West Midlands Bird club permit for Blithfield Res. The other organisations I support haven’t supplied me with stickers! I’ll proudly display a green blob sticker.
i’m old fashioned as well, Mark, and was gutted when the BTO told me they didn’t send out car stickers any more!! I still like the idea of being a member of things, as it fosters a sense of community and camaraderie. I know this might be out- moded, but I think if you’re trying to mobilise mass movements, then having some sense of esprit de corps is beneficial.
Having just joined the BTO at Birdfair, I recieved a car sticker then and another when my membership pack arrived today.The same can be said for Butterfly Conservation but not with RSPB.
Lizzie – thank you for your comment and, welcome!
Sadly stickers which relate to birding simply advertise that your car might be worth breaking into, with possibly optics inside … I stopped displaying them
years ago.
Yes, would definitely display a green blob sticker.
Just finished Martha. Many congratulations! Very, very good, but I wish it wasn’t
wasn’t true!
Sorry!
PS Loved the jacket design.
I only have a push-bike!
I do think there’s an underlying serious point in that potential members or supporters do seem to see it as an all or nothing thing — they support the organisation or not and don’t seem to have a concept either of membership as a participatory thing (voting for the trustees & so on) or that they might support an organisation while not agreeing with absolutely every one of its positions.
Swift conservation have just started producing car stickers – I was one of the lucky first recipients of these which is proudly stuck next to my Bristol rugby sticker on my Maserati Quattroporte sorry Vauxhall Astra.
(Something went wrong with the text of my original version of this comment – just now.)
Please tell me that at least some readers of this blog realise the inconsistency of advertising any green organisation on the back of a car? And what will you do to prevent the climate-change denier driving behind you just thinking ‘hypocrite!’ ?
As there seem to be so many simplistic people out there: I am not saying no-one should ever drive a car. We should however minimise their use, being wary of our tendency to self-justification. (“I’m very green really, but I need to drive to x today.”) And yes, it’s usually slower, more expensive, and much less convenient to travel without a car. I know from prolonged experience. But isn’t there always a ‘cost’ to doing the right thing? If you own a car, do you even investigate other ways of doing some of your journeys? My experience is that most drivers don’t.
Please could you write something about car use Mark? Words like ‘drive’, ‘driving’ and ‘car’ are some of the most frequent in your blog. The impression this gives is that driving everywhere is normal and completely ok, which isn’t something you have ever addressed in your blog I think. Yet car use is one of the largest sources of pollution, so we all need to set an example, or leave ourselves open to the charge of hypocrisy from our opponents.
I guess if I resign my membership from all of these organisations then I will no longer be a hypocrite?
Problem solved I suppose.
We have a fine collection of stickers on our car – BCT, John Muir Trust, BTO, all sorts of stuff. I used to have a British Kung Fu Association one which I hoped would make people think twice about breaking into the car! We dont have a WWF one though, despite both of us having worked for them. The reason you used to see so many WWF stickers is that one was always put in the reply when answering letters. I guess we all use email nowadays so there are far fewer stickers around.
I would love a green blob sticker, in the hope that it would advertise my contempt for the current government, O Paterson, etc.
I would love to display stickers on my car, but as I work with harriers that can make me (and my car) unpopular in certain areas, such as grouse moors. I also do a lot of survey work for the BTO, and, in the interests of getting access to land to count birds, I have on occasion had to deny any connection with the RSPB. I should add that my car has never been vandalised by any harrier-hating individual, so my fears may be unjustified. I’m in the process of replacing my car at the moment, so I may display British Birds and BTO stickers in the future.