UK Butterflies
Building a Community of Responsible Butterfly Enthusiasts in Britain & Ireland
Building a Community of Responsible Butterfly Enthusiasts in Britain & Ireland
The table below provides a chronology of significant events through the life of the UK Butterflies website. When I created UK Butterflies, I had no idea how popular it would become. This is largely down to the commitment of the various team members that have contributed over the years (Gary Richardson, Guy Padfield, Vince Massimo, Piers Vigus, Adrian Hoskins, Mike Young, Mark Colvin, David Moore and Kevin Doyle) and, of course, the membership as a whole. Thanks to you all!
- Pete Eeles, 17th January 2016
| 2000 | Pete Eeles registers the eeles.net domain for personal use. |
| 2002 | A public area at eeles.net is created to show an album of butterfly images. It's labelled UK Butterflies (as a deliberate complement to the wonderful UK Moths website) and visitors are encouraged to send their own photos to be included, with a view to providing a comprehensive photo album showing all species and stages. UK Butterflies is born! |
| 2004 | The ukbutterflies.co.uk domain is registered and the album moved there. |
| 2006 | The UK Butterflies forums are added, sowing the seeds of a true community. |
| 2008 | The first UK Butterflies photography workshop is held in Alice Holt Forest in Hampshire, with Adrian Riley as guest speaker. The event is sold out with 50 attendees. |
| 2008 | A photo gallery feature is added to the UK Butterflies forums, allowing members to create their own photo albums as well as post images in species-specific albums for use on the main species pages. |
| 2009 | The first UK Butterflies calendar (in association with Butterfly Conservation) is created by Gary and Lisa Richardson. All profits go to BC. |
| 2009 | The UK Butterflies stock photo library is created, with all profits going to BC. |
| 2010 | The UK Butterflies Outstanding Contribution Award is instigated, and is awarded to Gary and Lisa Richardson. |
| 2011 | UK Butterflies joins Facebook and Twitter. |
| 2011 | The first UK Butterflies social gathering takes place in Hampshire, organised by Susie Milbank. |
| 2012 | A UK Butterflies mission statement is defined: "Building a Community of Responsible Butterfly Enthusiasts". The key word here is responsible and this responsibility is at the heart of everything the website promotes, for butterflies and members. For example, from the perspective of our butterflies (!), the website does not make available information relating to sensitive sites. From the perspective of members, guidance is provided on what information can and cannot be shared publicly on the forums. |
| 2014 | A sister website, Dispar, is initiated, become the publishing arm of UK Butterflies, seeded with all of the UK Butterflies articles, reviews, trip reports and other publications. |
| 2016 | The website is given a significant 'refresh' to bring it in line with modern standards. |
| 2019 | The website is given another significant 'refresh' to make it 'responsive' to mobile devices. |
