Bill (William) Ely was nominated by Graham Walley NFBR Chairman and John Newbould retired NFBR Hon.Secretary. The NBN Board of Trustees agreed unanimously to award Bill 2015 Honorary Membership.
So, why was Bill given this award?
An outstanding personal contribution to biological recording including the mentoring of others
Although now retired, Bill Ely has been active in biological recording in Rotherham since he joined the Council’s museum service in 1975. He later started the Rotherham Biological Records Centre which had by December 2014 submitted a total of 1.6 Million records to the NBN from 11,650 taxa, which is remarkable from a largely urban and semi-urban district. Bill is well known to most, if not all, national scheme and society coordinators as a regular and long-established contributor, on behalf of Rotherham. Bill has promoted local recorders and recording, the valuing of local species, and the training of local people to record. What was the local museum’s database developed into a separate local record centre which grew through Bill’s tireless work with the Rotherham Naturalists’ Society, Rotherham Ornithological Society, the Sorby Natural History Society and the Yorkshire Naturalists’ Union. He also looked at gaps in recording and quickly became a skilled entomologist studying many groups, but specialising in Hymenoptera Parasitica and he is the Yorkshire Naturalists’ Union recorder for that group.
Bill has maintained his interest in museum collections as support for biological recording. He is a member of the Museums Association by qualification, and as well as curating the Rotherham collections has regularly used those of the Natural History Museum. He has visited museums such as Leeds, Manchester and York to check and re-organise Ichneumon collections and add new material.
Bill’s interest in recording continues in retirement. He has the ambition to ensure that each of the 183 10km squares in Yorkshire has at least 10 ichneumon records from them. He regularly identifies specimens collected from moth traps across the historic county as well and continues to make numerous site recording visits. He scores respectably highly on the list of records submitted to the present day iRecord.
A long established contribution as a scheme organiser involving significant advancement of recording methodologies, extension of recording at a national scale to a wider range of taxa, development and application of taxonomy for biological recording.
Bill Ely has made significant contributions to many schemes from his own recording effort and by facilitating the work of local recorders, as shown by the huge numbers of records across many groups submitted to recording schemes by the Rotherham BRC for 40 years, and latterly to the NBN.
A significant technical contribution to development of the NBN leading to new opportunities for accessing or using biological records
At the time Stuart Ball was beginning to develop what would become Recorder, Bill Ely, along with Tony Irwin at Norwich Museum, immediately saw the potential for local digital recording and provided ideas and support to Stuart and helped test the beta software. This was a key time for developing a means of organizing the flow of digital data from recorders to LERCs and the Biological Records Centre for the first time. Bill’s involvement ensured a wide range of data was processed and made available to users.
Through a major motivational leadership role in biological recording contributing to the NBN
In addition Bill has been active in organising recording at the national level, being at the inception of the NFBR and involved in the discussions leading to the Coordinating Commission for Biological Recording, of which he was a member, which recognised the need for a ‘NBN’, and he chaired NFBR for many years. Bill has been Chairman of the Yorkshire Naturalists’ Union Executive and is currently a member of the Editorial Board of its journal the Naturalist and is Chairman of its Entomological Section.
Without Bill’s enthusiasm for biological recording the NBN would not be able to celebrate that SK49, within the Rotherham LERC area, has the most records (ca 849,000) of any 10km square in the UK, despite this square containing no nationally important nature reserves and being highly urban. In 1962 in the Atlas of the British Flora, the same square then was one of the most under-recorded in the country.
Innovative use of the data collected by Biological Recorders that significantly advances understanding or influences policy and practice
Bill’s recording and record organisation was especially important in Rotherham. The local record centre he created and developed was amongst the first to be regularly consulted by the local authority, especially its planning department. He gradually gained their acceptance that accurate biological information had its place in local environmental decision-making and in the determination of planning applications and the making of local policies.
He has always been a champion of the benefits of assiduously recording in areas that may not look biologically promising, due to either their size or condition or use, on the basis that nature has the ability to survive or colonise on its own terms. This has been incredibly useful in raising the profile of biology in a largely urban area such as Rotherham.
2016 Honorary Member?
NBN Members will be asked to make their nominations for the 2016 Honorary member award in January, so if anyone is top of your list for this recognition please get ready to nominate!