The Ideal Mouse

 

The illustration (supplied by Stephan Mӧnninghoff) is titled “The Ideal Mouse”.

The text below the drawings is as follows:

IDEALS OF TWELVE VARIETIES OF MICE (S. Chichester Lloyd)

Without any more detail we can’t know who S Chichester Llloyd was, when he was writing this piece, or even if he kept mice. His illustrations would seem to suggest not! I doubt a mouse like No. 9 has ever existed. Some patterns are possible in one animal but not in others. Maybe No. 9 was based on a dog.

NMC subs

We have made a number of changes to things over the last few years. I doubt any of us can remember them all, but subscription renewal dates is one of them.

In the past, subs were always due in September. I’m not precisely sure of the reason for this, but have always assumed it was to make life easier for the secretary by having all renewals due together. If not, constant reminders and updates of the membership records would have been very tedious.

With the advent of the new NMC website, it is no longer necessary for the secretary to keep a record of join dates, as the website does it for us (and even more useful is the fact that automated reminders are sent out when renewal is due). We have therefore moved on to system whereby everyone has 12 months’ membership from the date they join. This is particularly helpful for NMC News, as members now pay a flat fee, no calculations necessary.

A major effect of Covid has been a long period with no shows at all, possibly the first time this has happened in the NMC’s history as I think shows were held during the wars, though I may be wrong. We have compensated member by giving everyone a bye year, or a free year’s membership. To make things easier (since every record on the website still has to be updated manually for this purpose) subscriptions are due to start up again on 1 July 2022.

Everyone who was a member before Covid (I did consider putting BC but thought that was pushing it a bit) will now have a new start date for their subscription of 1 July, and will receive a reminder email in the middle of June. Members who have joined during the last 12 months will have a renewal date which is the same as their join date.