## **Annual Return to the Charities Commission -**
## **Trustees’ Annual Report and Accounts**
## **For the Year Ending 31 January 2026**
## **Charitable Incorporated Organisation Name:**
Natural Sciences Collections Association (NatSCA)
## **Registration Number:**
1186918
## **Address:**
c/o Yvette Harvey, NatSCA Secretary
Royal Horticultural Society
RHS Garden Wisley
Woking, Surrey
GU23 6QB
## **Trustees in post for the period 1 February 2025 to 31 January 2026:**
Jack Ashby
(re-appointed at AGM 5 May 2025)
Isla Gladstone (re-appointed at AGM 5 May 2025)
Eimear Ashe (re-appointed at AGM 5 May 2025)
Clare Booth-Downs (retired at AGM 5 May 2025)
Clare Brown (Membership Secretary)
Belle Buchanan-Smith (Treasurer)
Tannis Davidson (Co-Chair)
(appointed Co-Chair at AGM 5 May 2025)
Patti Wood Finkle
Jen Gallichan (Co-Chair)
Yvette Harvey (Secretary)
Natalie Jones
Laura McCoy (re-appointed at AGM 5 May 2025)
Emma Murphy (re-appointed at AGM 5 May 2025)
Emilie Pearson
Glenn Roadley (Editor)
Efstratia Verveniotou (appointed at AGM 5 May 2025)
Page 1
Natural Sciences Collections Association. Registered Charity 1186918. Website: **www.natsca.org**
## **Structure & Governance:**
NatSCA is a Charitable Incorporated Organisation run by elected volunteer trustees from its membership. NatSCA is managed according to a Constitution of a Charitable Incorporated Organisation with voting members other than its charity trustees. This states that NatSCA must have a minimum of nine and maximum of 15 trustees. Named trustee roles to ensure key functions operate are Chair or Co-Chair, Secretary, Membership Secretary, Treasurer, Editor. Ordinary member trustees support NatSCA’s delivery of training, conference, social media and online blog, website, advocacy, conservation, awards, and bursaries.
At every AGM one-third (or number nearest to one-third if not a multiple of three) of the trustees retire by rotation according to those who have been longest in office. Vacancies are advertised to the membership and wider NatSCA community through our website, email lists and social media channels, and filled by decision of the members at the AGM.
## **Annual Activities and Objectives:**
NatSCA supports natural science collections and the people who work with them, to improve care, access, and enjoyment for all. We are UK-based but welcome international members and users. NatSCA’s objectives are to:
1. to advance the education of the public in the care and use of natural sciences collections and specimens.
2. to promote for the benefit of the public the highest standards in the preparation, care, conservation, management, interpretation and research of natural sciences collections and specimens.
3. for the benefit of the public to promote the science of natural sciences collections conservation and curation.
These are achieved through a combination of; training workshops, seminars & conferences; peer-reviewed journal; networking opportunities; website & sector resources; member bursaries; member project grants; advocacy.
## **NatSCA’s achievements and performance 1 February 2025 to 31 January 2026:**
The following report is compiled from an extract of the Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Natural Sciences Collections Association (NatSCA) held on 14 May 2026 at the Ulster Museum in Belfast, and additional commentary, where relevant. At the AGM the trustee annual reports detailing what has been achieved by NatSCA for public benefit were presented to our members. Minutes and annual reports from NatSCA’s AGMs are also published in print and online in our Journal of Natural Science Collections. The Annual Accounts included below in the Treasurer’s report and were approved for signature at the AGM.
Page 2
Natural Sciences Collections Association. Registered Charity 1186918. Website: **www.natsca.org**
## **Secretary’s Report: Yvette Harvey**
Eight Zoom committee meetings, a hybrid AGM and a hybrid Away Day (November)) have been held between February 2025 and January 2026. All meetings had 10 or more trustees present and lasted approximately one-hour. The typed minutes were prepared and distributed amongst the Trustees via a shared Google Drive.
||ii.2025|iii.2025|iv.2025|v.2025
AGM|vi.2025|vii.2025|ix.2025|x.2025|xi.2025|i.2026|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|**Jack Ashby**|Y|Y|Y|Y|Y||Y||Y|Y|
|**Eimear Ashe**|Y|Y|Y|Y|Y|Y|Y|Y|Y|Y|
|**Clare**
**Booth-Downs**||Y|Y||||||||
|**Clare Brown**||||Y|Y|Y||Y|Y||
|**Belle**
**Buchanan-Smith **|Y|Y|||Y||Y||Y|Y|
|**Tannis Davidson**||Y||Y||Y|Y|Y|Y|Y|
|**Patti Wood**
**Finkle**|Y|Y|Y|Y|Y|Y|Y|Y|Y||
|**Jennifer**
**Gallichan **|Y|Y|Y|Y|Y|Y|Y|Y|Y|Y|
|**Isla Gladstone**|Y|Y|Y|Y||Y||Y|Y|Y|
|**Yvette Harvey**|Y|Y|Y|Y|Y|Y|Y|Y|Y|Y|
|**Natalie Jones**|Y||Y||Y|Y||Y|Y|Y|
|**Laura McCoy**|Y|Y|Y|Y|Y|Y|Y|Y|Y||
|**Emma Murphy**|Y|Y||Y|Y|Y|Y|Y|Y|Y|
|**Emilie Pearson**|||||Y||||||
|**Glenn Roadley**|Y|Y|Y|Y|Y|Y|Y||Y|Y|
|**Efstratia**
**Verveniotou**|||||Y|Y|Y|Y|Y|Y|
|**Total No. present**|**11**|**12**|**10**|**11**|**13**|**12**|**11**|**11**|**14**|**11**|
Similar to last year, minute taking was shared between Yvette Harvey and Eimear Ashe, the former is very grateful to the latter for stepping in and helping.
Page 3
Natural Sciences Collections Association. Registered Charity 1186918. Website: **www.natsca.org**
## **Treasurer’s Report: Belle Buchanan-Smith**
## **Detailed Income & Expenditure with variance to prior year:**
||**FY2024/25**|**FY2025/26**|||
|---|---|---|---|---|
||**12m to**
**31-01-2025**|**12m to**
**31-01-2026**|**Variance**|**% change**|
|**Income**|**£20,802 **|**£20,405**|**(£437)**|**-2%**|
|Donatons|£29|£30|£1|3%|
|Publicatons|£64|£0|£64|-100%|
|InsttutonalSubscriptons- CurrentYear|£1,880|£2,200|£320|17%|
|InsttutonalSubscriptons- Prior Year|£0|£40|£40||
|InsttutonalSubscriptons- NextYear|£40|£40|£0|0%|
|PersonalSubscriptons- CurrentYear|£3,865|£3,795|(£70)|-2%|
|PersonalSubscriptons- NextYear|£130|£75|(£55)|-42%|
|ConferenceIncome- Atendees|£13,334|£11,395|(£1,939)|-15%|
|ConferenceIncome- Trade Stands|£1,050|£1,750|£700|67%|
|ConferenceIncome- Prior Year|£190|£0|(£190)|-100%|
||||||
|**Cost of Charitable Actvity**|**£12,332 **|**£21,243**|**£8,911**|**72%**|
|Publicatons andPostage|£1,505|£2,891|£1,386|92%|
|ConferenceCosts|£1,429|£1,483|£55|4%|
|ConferenceCatering|£7,486|£6,924|(£562)|-8%|
|Conference SpeakersFees|£589|£450|(£139)|-24%|
|WorkshopCosts|£36|£2,022|£1,986|5539%|
|Bill Pet Fund|£0|£6,000|£6,000||
|Bursaries- Conference|£1,287|£1,472|£185|14%|
|Bursaries- Workshops|£0|£0|£0||
||||||
|**Administraton Expenses**|**£1,641**|**£2,659**|**£1,017**|**62%**|
|WebHostng &Domain|£240|£233|(£7)|-3%|
|Sofware &Website|£299|£368|£69|23%|
|WebsiteDevelopment|£0|£0|£0||
|Postage|£19|£0|(£19)|-100%|
|DataProtecton|£35|£47|£12|34%|
|Bank/FinanceCharges|£122|£123|£1|1%|
|CommiteeTravel& Subsistence|£926|£1,887|£961|104%|
||||||
|**Surplus/(Defcit)**|**£6,829**|**(£3,496)**|**(£10,325)**|**-151%**|
|Reserves brought forward:|£52,596|£59,425|£6,829||
|**Reserves carried forward:**|**£59,425**|**£55,929**|**(£3,496)**||
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Natural Sciences Collections Association. Registered Charity 1186918. Website: **www.natsca.org**
## **Commentary on the Financial Year:**
NatSCA has made a £3,496 deficit this financial year (FY24/25: Surplus £6,829), decreasing our reserves to £55,929. Overall income has increased by 2%; the net impact of small increases in membership and workshop income partly offset by a decrease in conference income. The main item then causing the deficit for the year is the planned Bill Petit awards paid out.
The outturn for the conference can be seen below with a reduced surplus compared to the prior year. This is a deliberate result of maintaining the pricing at FY2023/24 levels and increasing bursaries offered. The same price is being held for the current year, to help maintain attendance, enabled by the surpluses in prior years.
|**Adjusted Conference Outurn**|**FY2024/25**|**FY2025/26**|**Variance**|**% change**|
|---|---|---|---|---|
|Income|14,574|
13,145|||
|_Late income re prior year _|_0_|_0_|||
|**TOTAL INCOME**|**14,574**|
**13,145**|**(1,429)**|**-10%**|
|Costs|9,504|
8,857|||
|Bursaries|1,287|
1,472|||
|_Deposit for 25/26 conference_|_(350)_|_350_||0%|
|**TOTAL FORECAST COSTS**|**10,441**|
**10,679**|**239**|**2%**|
|**Net Surplus from Conference**|**4,133**|**2,466**|**(1,667)**|**-40%**|
The adjusted surplus and reserves position shown below accounts for timing of payments made around the end of the financial year. This results in a net reduction in the surplus due to the Journal publication paid shortly after the end of the year.
|**Cash at Bank**|**FY2024/25**|**FY2025/26**|
|---|---|---|
|b/f Natwest|52,596|
58,581|
|b/f PayPal|0|
844|
|**b/f Total**|**52,596**|
**59,425**|
|c/f NatWest|58,581|
55,731|
|c/f PayPal|844|
198|
|**c/f Total**|**59,425**|
**55,929**|
|**Cash Surplus/(Defcit)**|**6,829**|
**(3,496)**|
|**Prepayments or Accrued Income:**|||
|Conference 2025 depositpaid in advance|350|
0|
|**Accruals or deferred income:**|||
|Journalpublicaton to bepaid in arrears|(2,870)|(1,785)|
|Bill Pett Fund to bepaid in arrears|0|
(500)|
|MembershipIncome received in advance|(170)|(115)|
|**Adjusted Surplus/(Defcit)**|**4,139**|
**(5,896)**|
|**Adjusted Reserves Positon**|**56,735**|
**53,529**|
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Natural Sciences Collections Association. Registered Charity 1186918. Website: **www.natsca.org**
## **Reserves Policy:**
The trustees have reviewed the level of reserves required, based on spending commitments and timings, and consider that reserves in the region of £20,000-£25,000 would be sufficient to ensure a secure basis for the continued operation of the charity and delivery of **.** objectives
Current reserve levels are more than twice this amount and the trustees are working on plans to utilise excess funds to the benefit of members and the wider Natural Sciences Collections community. Initial plans over the next 3 years include:
- Improvement of the online offering via updates to the NatSCA website and resources
- Increasing training and workshops, based on member feedback
- Offering additional bursaries to assist with the cost-of-living crisis, and low training budgets
- Commissioning a research piece to assist with advocacy in the sector to help demonstrate the value of our collections.
The trustees will review reserve levels a minimum of 6 monthly, to monitor available budget for opportunities for additional areas of work, member and public support, and advocacy.
The Bill Petitt Award approved a total of £6,500 for payment in FY25/26, £6,000 of which has been paid and £500 is pending payment on completion of the project in FY26/27. A new round of awards is planned to be run this year.
## **Annual Accounts**
The following accounts were presented and approved for signature by the members at the AGM.
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Natural Sciences Collections Association. Registered Charity 1186918. Website: **www.natsca.org**
||**Charity Name**
|**Charity Name**
|**Charity Name**
|**No (if any):**|**CC16a**|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||**Natural Sciences Collections Association (NatSCA)**
|||**1186918**||
||**Receipts and payments accounts**|||||
||
**For the period from**|
**Period start date**
**01/02/2025**|
**To**|
**Period end date**||
|||||**31/01/2026**||
|||||||
|**Section A Receipts andpayments**||||||
||**Unrestricted**
**funds**|**Restricted**
**funds**|**Endowment**
**funds**|**Total funds**|**Last year**|
||**to the nearest £**|**to the nearest £**|**to the nearest £**|**to the nearest £**|**to the nearest £**|
|**A1 Receipts**||||||
|**Institutional Subscriptions**|**2,280**|**-**|**-**|**2,280**|**1,920**|
|**Personal Subscriptions**|**3,870**|**-**|**-**|**3,870**|**3,995**|
|**Workshops**|**1,080**|**-**|**-**|**1,080**|**220**|
|
**Conferences**|**13,145**|**-**|**-**|**13,145**|**14,574**|
|**Donations**|**30**|**-**|**-**|**30**|**29**|
|**Publications**|**-**|**-**|**-**|**-**|**64**|
|**_Sub total(Gross income for_**
**_AR)_**|**20,405**|**-**|**-**|**20,405**|**20,802**|
|||||||
|**A2 Asset and investment sales, (see table). **||||||
||**-**|**-**|**-**|**-**|**-**|
|**_Sub total_**|
**-**|**-**|**-**|**-**|**-**|
|||||||
|**_Total receipts_**|
**20,405**|**-**|**-**|**20,405**|**20,802**|
|||||||
|**A3 Payments**||||||
|**Running costs**|**2,659**|**-**|**-**|**2,659**|**1,641**|
|**Workshops**|**2,022**|**-**|**-**|**2,022**|**36**|
|**Conference**|**8,857 **|**-**|**-**|**8,857 **|**9,504 **|
|**Publications & Information**
**Provision**|**2,891**|**-**|**-**|**2,891**|**1,505**|
|**Charitable Activities : Bill**
**Petit Grants**|**6,000**|**-**|**-**|**6,000**|**-**|
|**Charitable Activities :**
**Bursaries**|**1,472**|**-**|**-**|**1,472**|**1,287 **|
|**_Sub total_**|**23,901**|**-**|**-**|**23,901**|**13,973**|
|||||||
|**A4 Asset and investmentpurchases, (see table)**||||||
||**-**|**-**|**-**|**-**|**-**|
|**_Sub total_**|**-**|**-**|**-**|**-**|**-**|
|||||||
|**_Totalpayments_**|**23,901**|**-**|**-**|**23,901**|**13,973**|
|||||||
|**_Net of receipts/(payments)_**|**(3,496)**|**-**|**-**|**(3,496)**|**6,829**|
|**A5 Transfers between funds**|**-**|**-**|**-**|**-**|**-**|
|**A6 Cash funds last year end**|
**59,425**|**-**|**-**|**59,425**|**52,596**|
||**55,929**|**-**|**-**|**55,929**|**59,425**|
Page 7
Natural Sciences Collections Association. Registered Charity 1186918. Website: **www.natsca.org**
|**Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of theperiod**|**Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of theperiod**|**Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of theperiod**|**Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of theperiod**|**Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of theperiod**|**Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of theperiod**|**Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of theperiod**|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|**Categories**||||**Unrestricted funds**|**Restricted funds**|**Endowment funds**|
||**Details**|||**to nearest £**|**to nearest £**|**to nearest £**|
|**B1 Cash funds**|NatWest Current
Account|||**£55,731**|**-**|**-**|
||PayPal Account|||**£198**|**-**|**-**|
|||||**-**|**-**|**-**|
||**_Total cash funds_**|||**55,929**|**-**|**-**|
|(agree balances with receipts and payments account(s))||||OK|OK|OK|
|||||**Unrestricted funds**|**Restricted funds**|**Endowment funds**|
||**Details**|||**to nearest £**|**to nearest £**|**to nearest £**|
|**B2 Other monetary assets**||||-|**-**|**-**|
|||||**-**|**-**|**-**|
||||||**Cost (optional)**|**Current value**
**(optional)**|
||**Details**|||**Fund to which**
**asset belongs**|||
|**B3 Investment assets**|||||**-**|
**-**|
||||||**-**|**-**|
||||||||
||**Details**|||**Fund to which**
**asset belongs **|**Cost (optional)**|**Current value**
**(optional)**|
|**B4 Assets retained for the**
**charity’s own use**|||||**-**|**-**|
||||||**-**|**-**|
||**Details**||||**Amount due**
**(optional)**|**When due**
**(optional)**|
|||||**Fund to which**
**liability relates**|||
|**B5 Liabilities**|Advanced
Memberships|||Unrestricted|**15**|**01 Feb 2026**|
||Journal Publication|||Unrestricted|**1,785**||
||Bill Petit Awards 2025|||Unrestricted|**500**||
||||||**-**||
||||||||
|Signed by one or two trustees on
behalf of all the trustees|Signature|||Print Name||Date of approval|
|||||Jennifer Gallichan||14.05.2026|
|||||Yvete Harvey||14.05.2026|
Page 8
Natural Sciences Collections Association. Registered Charity 1186918. Website: **www.natsca.org**
## **Membership Secretary’s Report: Clare Brown**
For 2025 the membership statistics are as follows:
- 265 members (61 institutional, 204 personal).
- The total number of members is identical to the year before, with a tiny variation in make-up (2 more institutions and 2 fewer individuals).
- Around 80% of our membership is UK based, we also have members in 15 other countries.
- 91 members chose to receive a hardcopy of the journal.
- In addition there were 13 free/complimentary mailings of the journal either for legal/copyright reasons or networking (British Library LDO, British Library CRO, GCG, Smithsonian Institute Library Gift and Exchanges, ACE, SPNHC, MA, Zoological Record, plus five copies to Agency for the Legal Deposit Libraries).
It is unusual to report that membership numbers haven’t changed at all year-to-year.
However, this is good news as it follows the trend of the decrease in membership numbers slowing down. Membership rates usually increase with our offer of training events and in-person conferences and so our plans for these in 2026-27 should help. Uptake of the hardcopy of the journal is relatively stable, with most people choosing to look at it online.
I would like to thank everyone who has supported me with the membership work over the last year, Belle Buchanan-Smith, Eimear Ashe and Justine Aw in particular. It has been a great pleasure working for NatSCA over the last 20 years but it’s time for me to pass on my committee place to someone new. Thanks to everyone who has helped me in this role.
## **Editor’s Report: Glenn Roadley**
We received six submissions to Volume 14 of the Journal of Natural Science Collections for publication.
Members of the Editorial Board (Paolo Viscardi, Verity Burke, Bethany Palumbo, Emilie Pearson and Jan Freedman) were approached for assistance seeking and liaising with anonymous peer reviewers, resulting in all six papers being recommended for publication with minor revision.
Each paper received valuable comments from reviewers and were amended by authors before final reviewer approval and publication. Eimear Ashe joined the Editorial team this year, providing assistance in proofreading each paper in its final stages of review.
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Natural Sciences Collections Association. Registered Charity 1186918. Website: **www.natsca.org**
Volume 14 was published online on January 27th, 2026. The process for arranging physical copies to be produced and sent to members was initiated on January 28th, and Members were sent access links to the online copy on January 30th.
As it has now been available for 12 months, Volume 13 has been updated online, removing password-protection to make it freely available to all.
## **Co-Chairs’ Report: Jen Gallichan and Tannis Davidson**
In an environment of prolonged financial and workplace pressures for the sector, NatSCA have continued to find ways to support the community. Primarily this has been by providing opportunities for connection and knowledge sharing using our platforms and through attending our events.
NatSCA has significantly increased our bursary offer both in terms of number of bursaries and total amount offered to support members to attend our events. We have also continued to subsidise conference and training costs and run our small grants programme the Bill Pet Award. We have been able to write letters of advocacy for specific collections at risk and to support funding bids. It remains a difficult time financially for many individuals and organisations. Through platforms such as our conference, we will continue to showcase best practice that helps to sustain collections and offer opportunities for connecting with colleagues for mutual support.
The **award Bill Petti** supported natural science collections projects for a record total of £6500 in 2024-25. Two projects ‘Bugs in Our Drawers’ at the Isle of Man and ‘Collections Move Project’ at Southend Museums have completed and will soon be featured in the NatSCA blog or Journal of Natural Science Collections. Applications for the next round of funding are currently being reviewed, and we are looking forward to supporting another series of great projects in the coming year. Thank you to Eimear Ashe, Belle Buchanan-Smith and Yvette Harvey for assisting in reviewing applications.
We have been working hard to grow our programme of **events and publications** . As always, the largest is our annual conference which was held at Manchester Museum in 2025 with the theme ‘Making a Difference: Showing the Positive Impact of Natural History Collections’. This was part of a wider piece of work to bring together case studies of how our work is making a difference, how we measure it, how we show success, and how we advocate for collections. We also continued to offer the option to attend online thanks to the hard work of Glenn Roadley and Justine Aw, which has been welcomed for accessibility.
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Natural Sciences Collections Association. Registered Charity 1186918. Website: **www.natsca.org**
The presentations were of an extremely high standard and as always, the conference evaluation comments note the welcoming atmosphere. The sessions on collections-based research around biodiversity loss were particularly well received. We were especially pleased that we had a large delegation of first-time attendees, with 40% of respondents stating that this was their first time attending a NatSCA conference.
We are continuing to work on delivering **training** to our membership, both in-person and online. This year we delivered “A Practical Introduction to Museum Disaster Management”. This was one of the most-requested topics in a survey to members to understand priorities for training. The session was delivered by Jane Thompson-Webb, Head of Conservation for Birmingham Museums Trust and who Chairs ICON’s Care of Collections Group. Ticket costs were subsidised approximately 50% by NatSCA.
We continue to run a series of free lunchtime chats for members although it has been agreed that we will reduce the frequency of the chats to once a quarter due to the difficulty in finding speakers. It will be assessed later in the year to see if the chats should be cancelled altogether.
It has been a great year for the **NatSCA blog** . Visits and views to the site have steadily increased over the second half of the year and January saw our highest number of views ever at 5,653. This means that our number of visits has increased overall by 15% and number of views by 30%. We continue to attract the highest number of visitors from the USA and UK. It is a positive sign to see that we continue to attract visits from countries outside the UK showing that the articles are getting more international coverage than ever before. A total of 34 blogs were posted throughout the year covering a range of topics from conserving, moving and storing collections, great examples of how we are engaging visitors with museum collections, multi-disciplinary projects covering art and science, and researching the histories and legacies of the collections we work with. Overall, these reflect the diverse and dynamic work happening within the natural history sector.
A huge note of thanks also to all our contributors. The blog is very much driven by the excellent standard and diversity of articles that are submitted and I hope that contributors that have used it to showcase their work have benefitted from using the platform.
Glenn Roadley reports several spikes to the NatSCA **Website** which we are attributing to bots – of the ~37,000 users that visited the site over the period, over 30,000 originated from China – over 16,000 from the city of Lanzhou. This appears to be a common issue. Website updates have continued to include sector job vacancies, updates to committee member profiles and the addition of the 2025 conference material.
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Natural Sciences Collections Association. Registered Charity 1186918. Website: **www.natsca.org**
We have not yet been able to proceed with updates to NatSCA’s current website. The design of the website is complete, and all content has been migrated apart from blog posts and publications. Due to Glenn’s reduced capacity following election to the role of Journal Editor, it has been identified as a priority to fund external assistance to complete this work. We are particularly seeking a **Digital Coordinator** who will sit on committee, whose role would be to improve on our digital platforms and support development in this area. If you are interested in this role, please do come and chat with a member of the committee.
In terms of **national network projects** , NatSCA has continued to support work to develop a national digital research infrastructure for natural science collections called DiSSCo UK (Distributed System of Scientific Collections UK). We hope to support participation and benefit for small to large collections across the UK. We have also represented NatSCA with the Museums Association and SPNHC, as well as continuing to connect with UK Subject Specialist Networks including the Geological Collections Group and Insect Collection Managers Group.
## **Election of NatSCA trustees**
Trustees form a steering committee with obligations to ensure NatSCA meets our mission, ensure good governance and conform to Charity Commission regulations.
Below are the nominees for NatSCA trustee positions standing for election at this AGM. The Membership Secretary has confirmed that those proposed, those proposing and those seconding are all current personal members of NatSCA. No term will exceed three years without re-election.
There are four vacancies for Ordinary Members and four nominees.
|**Nominee**|**Positon**|**Proposed**|**Seconded**|
|---|---|---|---|
|Jennifer Gallichan|Ordinary Member|Eimear Ashe|Yvete Harvey|
|Yvete Harvey|Ordinary Member|Nina Davies|Rachel Webster|
|Natalie Jones|Ordinary Member
(Conservaton)|Lucie Mascord|Emilia Kingham|
|Pat Wood Finkle|Ordinary Member|Yvete Harvey|Laura McCoy|
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Natural Sciences Collections Association. Registered Charity 1186918. Website: **www.natsca.org**
Below is the nominated candidate for **Co-Chair** :
There is one vacancy for Co-Chair and one nominee.
|**Nominee**|**Positon**|**Proposed**|**Seconded**|
|---|---|---|---|
|Eimear Ashe|Co-Chair|Tannis Davidson|Jen Gallichan|
## Below is the nominated candidate for **Editor** :
There is one vacancy for Editor and one nominee.
|**Nominee**|**Positon**|**Proposed**|**Seconded**|
|---|---|---|---|
|Glenn Roadley|Editor|Rachel Pets|Diana Esther Aruza|
Below is the nominated candidate for **Membership Secretary** :
There is one vacancy for Membership Secretary and one nominee.
|**Nominee**|**Positon**|**Proposed**|**Seconded**|
|---|---|---|---|
|Lucie Mascord|Membership
Secretary|Emilia Kingham|Natalie Jones|
## Below is the nominated candidate for **Treasurer** :
There is one vacancy for Treasurer and one nominee.
|**Nominee**|**Positon**|**Proposed**|**Seconded**|
|---|---|---|---|
|Belle
Buchanan-Smith|Treasurer|Laura McCoy|Eimear Ashe|
**Proposal:** We propose one ‘en bloc’ vote for all remaining nominees (4 nominees for
Ordinary Member, 1 nominee for Co-Chair, 1 nominee for Editor, 1 nominee for Membership Secretary, 1 nominee for Treasurer).
Proposer: Paolo Viscardi
Seconder: Jack Ashby
## _**All proposals were passed with the required 50% at the AGM; Trustees and named posts as listed above were duly agreed for appointment or re-appointment.**_
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Natural Sciences Collections Association. Registered Charity 1186918. Website: **www.natsca.org**
## **Vote of thanks**
NatSCA would like to thank everyone who has been involved in delivering our activities in 2025-26. This includes all those who have contributed lunchtime chats, training and conference talks, blogs, articles, applications, questions, expertise, support and more.
We would like to thank NatSCA’s trustees for all their hard work on key activities and for contributing to the overall running of NatSCA. All our trustees are invaluable to the delivery of our activities, supporting named leads in their roles.
Jen Gallichan and the trustees would like to pass on heartfelt thanks to the great group of volunteers who compile our monthly Digital Digest (Olivia Beavers, Milo Philipps and Ellie Clark) who continue to regularly contribute to the monthly newsletter, which has been a great way of signposting the community to events, jobs and training opportunities.
We also thank Justine Aw for her highly valued external technical support, particularly regarding the Membership Secretary role.
Many thanks to our Journal Editorial Board (Paolo Viscardi, Verity Burke, Bethany Palumbo, Emilie Pearson and Jan Freedman), whose assistance in managing the peer review process is indispensable, and to our anonymous reviewers who have worked hard to ensure the Journal is of a high academic standard.
The NatSCA committee would like to thank Jen Gallichan who is stepping down from the Co-Chair position this year but will remain on committee as Blog Editor. Jen has done an outstanding job as Co-Chair over the past three years through her direction, organisation, and dedication to advance the impact of the work of NatSCA. Thank you Jen!
The NatSCA committee would like to extend special thanks to Clare Brown who is stepping down from committee this year. Clare has been a valued and much-loved committee member for 20 years, in which time she has held roles as Chair, Training lead and most recently Membership Secretary. Clare has contributed so much to NatSCA in her time, and we will all miss her wise judgement, incredible experience and above all immense enthusiasm for natural history collections. We wish you all our very best.
NatSCA’s strength is in being community-led, and we value your contributions towards this past and future. Please do get in touch if you are interested in volunteering for NatSCA or in how our committee works: chair@natsca.org
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Natural Sciences Collections Association. Registered Charity 1186918. Website: **www.natsca.org**