#129 - HALEFEST

Greetings,

I'm exhausted and jet-lagged after my third trip to England this year alone. I believe it was my 12th trip to the UK overall. My first was in 2006 when I was a vendor promoting my ARACHNOCULTURE magazine. Around the same time my mate Andrew Smith asked me to become the British Tarantula Society's North American Representative. I returned twice the following year - the first time to be the keynote speaker at the BTS Lectures and the second to once again attend the Exhibition. By then I had put ARACHNOCULTURE to rest and I was there to work as a committee member. My employer at Northwest Zoological and owner of Tarantulas.com Alex Orleans was with me.

Although the first two UK trips of 2016 were for the BTS Lectures (early March) and Exhibition (mid-May), this visit was to attend a party. Yep, I flew 8000 miles round trip and spent $2000+ to go to a party! It wasn't just any party though. Ray and Angela Hale have been the backbone of the BTS for 25 years and they run our Head Office and are the Exhibition Organizers/Promoters. Every year they have an early July party called "Halefest". This was #14. The theme was "Back to the 80s" and us metalhead types dressed in kind. I have been invited the past few years and finally accepted. The day of the party was also the Hales 33rd wedding anniversary. The party is largely comprised of people who have a BTS association and many are current or former BTS Committee members. That, of course, includes my brother-from-another-mother Mark Pennell and his wife Kim. I tried to surprise them with limited success. A few hints I dropped were "sussed out" by Mark and Kim and they felt the atmospheric disturbance I cause.

The Hales. Ray in Lemmy costume. 80s party. Photo credit: © Matt Cooper

Me, Mark and Tyrion Lannister have things in common.
I brought Mark's T-shirt over as a gift.
This is shortly after the Pennells and the Wills arrived from Bristol
#tigerlager #ftw

My costume. Me in a Venom T-shirt and denim vest and wig.
My hair was never black, but it was always ridiculous in the 80s.
Love the flag of England in the background as I was celebrating the
New Wave of British Heavy Metal with my costume.
The vest had a Venom patch on back, my nickname "Jake" on the breast
 and a NWOBHM patch, but all are obscured.

I will see Mark and Kim and Ray and Ang soon in Budapest. This is the third year Mária and László of MaciLaci Spiders, Hungary will put on a lecture series in Budapest that features five BTS-associated presenters. This year Mark and Ray will speak, as will Andrew Smith, Stuart Longhorn and Peter Kirk. I am going to bring a lecture or two on my flash drive in case I am needed as a pinch-hitter ;) Or perhaps they want to extend the talks by another hour? No worries. The reason I am going is just to hang with the Pennells and the Hales. Seeing what everyone says is an amazing city will be a bonus, and so will having the opportunity to spend time with the Hungarian contingent.

Kim, "Lemmy" Ray, Haidee and Mark.
The Pennells and the Wills came as Bucks Fizz.
They danced along with the hit "Making My Mind Up"
#sillybrits

Me and the mad genius that is Carl Portman.
METAL GODS!
Not sure why I look so constipated.
But I am sure why I look so sunburned. Tricky English clouds.

So as I spend the day recovering from exhaustion and jet-lag I reflect on trips past and adventures to come. Budapest October will be here before I know it. Then I will be counting down the days until my February 2017 trip back to Langkawi Island, Malaysia where this year the Hales will join us. The week before many of our group will also be in Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo where I hope to find vipers and spiders in the jungles of Bako National Park. In between hopefully I'll be able to swing England 2016 #4 with yet another visit to Bristol.

All the best, MJ

#112 - MONDAY RANDOMNESS

Greetings to all who have stuck with Kiss My Big Hairy Spider despite my reduced output. I appreciate every one of you who still checks in with this blog. My last series of posts, which chronicled the 14th BTS Lectures, sadly only had 25-35 page views each so I definitely have lost readership. But since I know that some of my closer arachnocultural friends like John Apple and Tom Patterson continue to read KMBHS so that is enough for me to keep writing. Hopefully I will find some topics with wider appeal and some of you will help me by sharing the blog link via forums and social media.

The real reason my readership is down is that I have retired and have ceased using Facebook, Arachnoboards and the like. I am not promoting the blog except to share each new post via Google+ (pretty automatic as Blogger is a Google product) and also via my @exoticfauna Twitter account. Also, Scott and Debby Scher have been kind enough to give me a banner ad on AB. I ask that y'all help me by sharing new blog entries as I'd at least like the page views to double.

As I review the page views of the last 111 posts it is obvious that my early rants and the more instructional spider keeping posts are favored above others. However, to be honest, I will write what I want. I'm an independent prog extreme metal guy ... I'm not looking to make a pop single (if that analogy works).

So ... although I am sure there were readers not interested in the BTS posts, I would like to wrap up that series here as I know some of my primary readers are already members. I won't solicit new members again. I think it's a no-brainer for anyone seriously into arachnoculture to be a member even if only via the budget digital only method, but I am not going to flog a dead horse. I will just say that, as the attendance at the Lectures proved once again, the BTS is an INTERNATIONAL organization. The "B" stands for British, but our membership is worldwide and there is no arguing that it is the premiere English-language organization and the best option for American arachnid enthusiasts.

So, to wrap up the series of my trip to Bristol for the 14th Annual Lectures, I would like to report on the AGM (Annual General Meeting). This is the committee meeting that all members can attend and it is held Lectures weekend to make it easy for regular members who are at the Lectures to attend. Sadly, the non-committee attendance was disappointing. However, it was an important committee meeting as the couple that have been running our Membership Office have resigned and we now are seeking new qualified volunteers. In the interim, the Head Office, ran for years by Angela and Ray Hale, will handle membership duties. Another major topic was the Journal and the transition to my taking over as Editor. I proposed that we create a bi-monthly digital-only Newsletter to give members more bang for their buck and to have an appropriate home for some features that I do not consider appropriate for the Journal (e.g., Letters to the Editor, Book Reviews, cartoons, brief breeding reports, etc.). The motion was passed and I am now working on this project and hope to have the premier issue online within the next 30 days. Finally, another important topic was our Research Grant. The BTS accepts proposals for funding and we select a project to fund with 500 of those British Pounds. We only had one submission and therefore voted to contribute to a Brazilian graduate student's work. Dr. Stuart Longhorn oversees this Research Grant, and I will get him to write some info on this work for the new Newsletter. By the way, this blog entry is the first public announcement about the new Newsletter. So my KMBHS readers get a scoop. I appreciate you following me here and will give you little scoops when I can.

Since I keep mentioning the BTS, in fairness I will mention that the ATS is holding a conference this year. As most of you know, they cancelled the conference for the first time in 16 years last summer and "Ken the Bug Guy" held what he and his wife Georgi called a "placeholder event" at the same resort. I was an ATS member from the beginning, but admit I have no intention of being one again. In my opinion all the ATS has ever offered is the conference. It is now held at an amazing location in Tucson, Arizona and I highly recommend attending. When I spoke in 2014, I was duly impressed with the weekend. I must give kudos to those who ran it. However, the ATS has been plagued by poor leadership over the years or had a decent leader whose volunteer board members didn't pull their weight. There has never been a cohesive unit; there has never been a publication worth reading save for the odd decent article (such as Joy Reed's report on breeding Grammostola pulchra). The conference is their one success and I encourage my readers to attend. Remember, these are just my opinions based on involvement since the Carlsbad days and Spider Bob's questionable operation. I wish them the best and I hope they prove me wrong and find a way to succeed. However, they need some qualified volunteers who can produce a professional website and periodical. For 15+ years they have had only the most amateurish internet and printed publication presence. What makes the BTS succeed is committee members who are dedicated and pull their weight. Each has the skill set required for each job. We don't just take anyone willing as these type of people soon have waning interest and drift away. We also wouldn't have, for example, a Treasurer who can't even balance his or her checkbook. You need QUALIFIED, highly dedicated volunteers in EVERY position on your board/committee and the ATS has never had this. But their conference is very good and their current location is amazing. I doubt I'll ever attend again as I travel so much for my own pursuits (including my own trips to Arizona). They'd have to invite me to be keynote speaker and pick up my tab to get me to come again. I don't expect that will happen and, to be honest, in retirement I think any arachnid related lectures I do in the future would be reserved for the BTS. I also have been asked to lecture in Hungary in 2017. I will need to take another field trip in the interim to come up with material as I don't really have much to offer as far as keeping and breeding go now that I've ceased doing so. I am still working with a group of Avicularia sooretama and Harpactira pulchripes, but I don't think there is lecture material there. As far as field trips go, in February 2017 I plan to return to Langkawi, Malaysia with Mark Pennell and company and it is likely that we will spend a weekend beforehand in Sarawak, Borneo. Mark found an interesting new arboreal on Langkawi last month so perhaps there is a lecture or a paper in all of this. However, most of my public speaking will now be limited to teaching defensive handgun technique.

But, let's return to the BTS Journal for a moment... For those of you who are members and are wondering when the next issue will be released, I am happy to report that I will be sending 31(1)/March 2016 to the printer in England today. I won't reveal much about the content, but I will give you a scoop. Tom Patterson and I have collaborated on an article about Heteropoda sp. huntsman spiders. I'm not going to mount an American takeover of the Journal, but it does make me happy to include American authors other than myself. I encourage some of you to consider writing. If you need my help I am happy to come on as co-author. If it is a brief article that may not be a Journal piece I now have the Newsletter to publish it. All I need is notes and outline and I can write it, so you need not worry about your ability as a writer. Of course, photos are always welcome too (preferably 300 dpi CMYK TIFF files, not iPhone pix!). On that note, let's all ask Chad Campbell to do a photography article for the first Newsletter. Chad will be my guest this coming weekend (along with Jason Newland, John Apple and some yet unnamed friends - probably Rob Mitchell). I will talk to him then. An article by Chad would be a great feature piece for the debut of the Newsletter.

In closing, I will mention that I apologize that ArachnoGathering became a two years and out event just like ArachnoCon. This coming weekend is the March NARBC when #3 would have been held. When I created ArachnoGathering I had planned for a longer run, but in retirement I have no desire. It's funny that even though Chad and Apple and Co. will be here this weekend, none of us have any interest in going to the NARBC show. 33 professional years of reptiles and spiders; over 40 as a keeper. Enough for me.

OK, I must get back to putting the finishing touches on the Journal file and get it to the printer. I'll leave you here. Until next time, MJ