Newsletters

NOTE ON THE TREE SOCIETY OF RHODESIA NEWSLETTERS

Mr. J. B. Richards, in 1949, conceived the idea of forming a “group/society”, of folk interested in studying and getting to know more about the trees around them, and the Tree Society of Rhodesia was founded with the support of the then Mayor of Salisbury in 1950.

Since that time there have been different forms of communication with members, at first, an irregular letter to members, then a more formal monthly newsletter advising members of Outings and giving members reports on Outings and a general chit chat on what the Society’s Committee was doing in the interests of the community, the Society or trees in general.  While the trees seen on various outings were recorded on the Tree List these were only briefly mentioned, sometimes, in the Newsletter.   We, the present committee, are not able to find records of these Tree Lists.  However, we are so fortunate that three of our members, Mark Hyde, Bart Wursten and Meg Coates Palgrave have comprehensive data on their personal records and these are available on their website Zimbabwe Flora and on Meg Coates Palgrave’s Key to Trees of Southern Africa App.

In 1980 things changed!  Tree Society of Rhodesia became Tree Society of Zimbabwe and the new dynamic committee decided that the Tree Society Newsletter should provide a much more detailed account of the happenings within the Society and the Newsletter of the Tree Society of Rhodesia became Tree Life, Newsletter of the Tree Society of Zimbabwe.

All the issues of Tree Life, Newsletter of the Tree Society of Zimbabwe from No. 1, April 1980 till the latest edition, bar one, have now been uploaded onto the Society’s new website, which is a very comprehensive and searchable site and which can be continually updated.  The Society must thank Mr. Tim Masson who designed the website at very reasonable cost and undertook to help us understand how to upload and update information, and our very grateful thanks are also due to Mr. Mark Hyde who has undertaken to host the site for the Society.

Having completed the task of uploading all the Tree Life issues, this was no mean undertaking, there then became the issue of recording all the previous newsletters.  This is now 2019 and the Society goes back to 1949!! Finding hardcopy of the old issues of the Newsletter was a mission.  What we have been able to lay our hands on has been typed and uploaded in a different format from the Tree Life, each year’s letters in one entry i.e. all issues for 1970 under one heading, 1970.  There have been no photographs taken from Flora of Zimbabwe to illustrate the issues; instead all the “Featured Images” are photographs of Adansonia digitata, baobab, taken from Zimbabwe Flora website.  The baobab is the emblem of the Society.

It is hoped that we will be able to go to the National Archives of Zimbabwe and get more information about the early days of the Society from their records.  Sadly, Mary Lovemore who has been responsible for loading all this information onto the new, very impressive website is not able to get to the Archives because of an indisposition.  She is hoping that some energetic soul will be able to get to the Archives and find more early information about the Society and then this information will be uploaded as well.

In the meantime, our aim is to have as complete a history of this great little society as possible, and maybe in this age of information on websites, more young aspiring botanists, naturalists or just keen bush lovers will become interested in the environment in which trees play such a major role and keep the aims and objectives of this Society alive and well.  Aluta continua.