What a great day at the Leeds West Yorkshire AGS Conference yesterday.
Lecture day notes: Views and words from Kevin Pratt
Programme
7.00 Leave house and scrape Ice off the car, first frost of the year, Stockport 22 September 2012 car shows 0c degrees.
9.00 Arrival to Free coffee, that was a nice surprise, then a chance to buy plants from the four plant stalls. Robert Potterton had a huge range of bulbs for sale. Slack Top and Aberconwy nursery had as per usual a range of plants at their prime. Anne Wright was selling unusual snowdrop bulbs and Orchids and there was the usual AGS members stall. (I bought more Orchids and Gesneriads)
9.35 Peter Erskine - The Maritime Alps.
Its quite a while since I herd Peter talk. A detailed travel talk, commanding and interesting view from the southern Alps. Good alpine pictures but shame it was slides. Most of the pictures were very good quality but the occasional picture was not top quality. Still it didn't spoil the overall show.
11.10 John Richards - Northern Greece and Mount Olympus.
Always an enjoyable speaker and knowledgeable of a place he has been 66 times. Splendid digital pictures, very detailed and I felt he covered every plant in Northern Greece, almost.
12.30 Lunch time at the local chip shop. Quality fish and chips but very sssllllloooowwwwwww.
13.30 Hilary and John Birks - Scandinavian and British alpines.
John was the speaker here, never herd John Birks speak before but would travel a long way to hear him speak again. Maybe not to his home in Scandinavia, but never-the-less would really like to hear him again. Not the easiest talk to give straight after lunch but he reminded me of my favourite lecturer at university. Simply the best of the day, amazing pictures, amazing detail on plants, brilliant. He finished on the effects of climate change on the Scandinavian alpines, which interested me the most.
15.10 Jim Jermyn - Eastern Alps and Slovenia.
A good talk covering his holiday pictures of the Alps over many decades, highly interesting and detailed with some very good scenery pictures bundled with a number of high quality award winning views . His unique exuberant, expressive hand waving and pointing was extremely off putting at first but not distracting from an overall interesting show.
4.30 All done with thanks to the excellent speakers.
6.00 Home safe.
