British Lichen Society AGM & Winter Meeting
Lichens in Churchyards and on Man-made structures
We look forward to welcoming members in person to our Winter Meeting, as well as Society officers, Trustees, speakers and exhibitors.
Our AGM, and all of the events in our winter meeting, are free to attend both for members and for non-members interested in lichens. Please consider coming along to see what the society has been up to over the past year, to hear talks about lichens, and to experience a field trip with us.
Details of this year’s photo competition are at the bottom of this page. We hope to display the photos and have in-person voting this year.
Date: Friday 30th January – Sunday 1st February
Location: Tullie House Museum & Art Gallery in Carlisle. Please see email sent to attendees with regard to which entrance should be used.
Full address: Castle Street, Carlisle CA3 8TP
Bookings: We ask that attendees book in so that we know numbers to aid our planning, and to make sure that we have enough refreshments for everyone. Bookings for in-person attendance open on 2nd December 2025. Please email agm@britishlichensociety.org.uk with a list of those events that you wish to attend (e.g. Friday lecture, Friday dinner, Saturday morning – AGM, Saturday afternoon – talks and/or Sunday field trip). Bookings will close on 11th January to allow us to inform our caterers. If your booking email is not acknowledged within two weeks, please contact memb-secretary@britishlichensociety.org.uk
Payments for Friday’s dinner should be made by BACS to British Lichen Society, CAF Bank, 40-52-40 00012363 using DIN26YourSurname.
The menu can be found as an attachment - see below.
Online attendance: Unfortunately, Council have not been able to set up a reliable system for providing any hybrid events this year, so online attendance will not be available. The AGM speakers have been approached to ask them if they will be willing to make a recording of their talk so that these can be offered on the BLS YouTube channel. Many have already agreed to do this, and Council thanks them for their generosity.
Programme outline:
Friday 30th January
17.30 Reception (wine and soft drinks) and Exhibition in the Reading Room of Tullie House.
18.00 Talk in the Auditorium adjoining the Reading Room. Dr Nicholas Carter: The Living ePalace: Biodiversity, Bioprotection and Beauty at Blenheim.
19.30 Dinner at the Crown & Mitre Hotel. The menu is available here. Cost £30.00. The meal must be booked and paid for in advance. Please see booking information above.
Saturday 31st January
9.30 Coffee, tea and Exhibition (Reading Room, Tullie House)
10.00 Annual General Meeting, (Auditorium, Tullie House)
12.30 Lunch break and Exhibition.
The Tullie House Museum have been able to make arrangements for light lunches to be served in the café as well as hot and cold drinks. Menu options include: toasties, jacket potatoes, soups and cake. The café space and the exhibition room can still be used for eating food that you bring with you and there are numerous cafés near the museum. Although the main museum will be closed to the public during the AGM, members will have full access to a display of Pre-Raphaelite art.
14.00 Introduction
14.05 Talks programme – session one
15.30 Tea break
16.00 Talks programme – session two
16.50 Winners and awards
17.00 End of meeting.
Sunday 1st February
Field meeting in Carlisle Cemetery.
Full address: Dalston Rd, Carlisle CA2 6AR
The Carlisle Cemetery was laid out in 1855. Its buildings all date from that time except for the crematorium which was completed in 1956. The 29 ha site includes many Victorian monuments, a paupers burial area, and a woodland burial site dominated by oak trees planted in the late 1900s. The only previous lichen records for the site were collected in 1994 and 1995.
Time: Meet at 10.00 am near the main car park next to the crematorium (see photo and map attachment below). The finish time is flexible, but BLS officers and first aiders will be there until 14.00. The cemetery closes its gates at 17.00.
Map: A map of Carlisle Cemetery can be found as an attachment below.
Parking: At the crematorium, accessed from Dalston Road.
Toilets: In the crematorium building.
Refreshments on site: None.
Transport: There is a lack of suitably timed buses for the field meeting, so we will try to arrange lifts to and from the cemetery for those who arrived in Carlisle on public transport. If you can offer spare seats in a car to people who need lifts, please let Fay Newbery know by emailing agm@britishlichensociety.org.uk. Please state where you could pick up from and where you could drop off. Similarly, if you need a lift to the cemetery and/or back towards your hotel or the train station, please email with details.
Buses: The 533 to Keswick leaves the Carlisle Bus Station at 10.00 and arrives at the Dalston Road entrance at 10.09. Return buses are at 12.23 and 17.58.
Collecting: We have permission to collect ONLY for identification purposes. We are NOT licensed to collect from any of the listed buildings or monuments which are all listed in the attached information sheet (see below). All collections should be made with NO damage to stone or bark. If you are not experienced at collecting in this way, please seek advice from an expert before taking a specimen.
Recording: Please watch out for an email in February to let you know where to send your records. This prevents the same lichen thallus seen by a group of people being entered into the BLS database multiple times. Although, of course, we welcome records of the same species in different locations across the cemetery and/or on different growing on different surfaces. A list of previous records from 1994/1995 is attached (see below).
Questions: If you have any questions or concerns about the field day, please email agm@britishlichensociety.org.uk and Lindsay or Fay will try to help.
Accommodation: Carlisle has some large hotels near the centre and plenty of guest houses and bed & breakfast accommodation.
Parking: Tullie House can be easily accessed from Castle car park using a footbridge that crosses Castle Way. Car park charges and details of how to pay can be found at: https://www.cumberland.gov.uk/parking-roads-and-transport/parking/find-car-park-near-you/castle-car-park-carlisle
Exhibits: These can be put up in the Reading Room from 14.00 on Friday and should be ready for viewing by 17.30. They can be viewed during tea breaks until the close of the meeting on Saturday. All exhibits need to be removed by 16.30 pm on Saturday.
There is still space for other exhibits, whether that is art, or a set of themed specimens, or a poster. Please email Fay Newbery at president@britishlichensociety.org.uk to book tables or display stands before 1st December.
The BLS sales table will be present. See the BLS Shop page at https://britishlichensociety.org.uk/the-society/bls-shop and email Eluned to pre-order if you want to be sure stock is put aside for you. Remember, the Winter Meeting is an opportunity to pick up items from our shop without paying postage and packing!
A new list of books available in the BLS library is now available at https://britishlichensociety.org.uk/resources/bls-library If you would like to pre-order a book, we are offering to pick up and to bring requested books to the AGM weekend. Please order by emailing ehsbiol@gmail.com before 11th January. Borrowers will be responsible for book return either in-person or by post.
There will also be a take-and-donate table. Please bring anything that you no longer need which other lichen-lovers may be able to make good use of. Donations to the BLS.
Photo Competition:
The themes for 2026 will be: ‘Under the microscope’ and ‘The bigger picture’.
Entries are limited to two photos per category per entrant.
The competition is open to both members of the society and to others interested in lichens and/or photography. The prize will be small but prestigious, as I imagine we will be able to persuade the editor of The Bulletin to use at least one of the winning photos on a front cover.
This year we are stipulating that anyone entering the competition gives the BLS the right to use all entered photos (with due acknowledgement) on their website, in their communications, and also in their publications.
Deadline: 15th December 2025. Extended to 31st December 2025.
Send to: competition@britishlichensociety.org.uk All entries will be acknowledged. If you do not hear from us after 14 days, please try to resend. If you wish to send pictures by other means (such as by WeTransfer), please make arrangements by email before sending.
