THE show to go to!!

Getting excited – not long now to the AES Annual Exhibition and Trade Fair at Kempton Park Racecourse!!! It is held on the 1^st October (2011) and is the largest invertebrate show in the UK. www.amentsoc.org .Tickets are £4 per adult and £2 per child. Under sevens and AES Bug Club members go free. It is attended by most of the major invertebrate societies in the UK and is quite simply a truly fantastic day out. I can not recommend it enough but you need some pocket money because there are loads of books, equipment, livestock and specimens for sale. We go as a family with friends and my sons are doing two separate displays on their own invertebrate observations as AES Bug Club members. It is great for them educationally as it covers Science,  Art/Design, English and sometimes Mathematics as well as having an informal chat to the judges on the day. They do it all for their own enjoyment (£50 prize money is up for grabs which appears to be quite an incentive too)! It is open to any age within the Bug Club and can cover any invertebrate in any depth with the children's age and capabilities taken into account. First stop for us will be Graham and Janice Smith www.metamorphosis.gb.com , on their stand to see what they have on show and a quick chat. Graham is one of those rare people who can hold a massive amount of information and share it out with gusto. I could listen to him all day! They are both just so enthusiastic and knowledgeable it is very hard to actually keep it to a quick chat but it is a busy day for them and they have loads to get on with. Then its a quick nip upstairs to the live pupae stands to choose a new project to hatch out and hopefully breed. After that is in the bag it is a day of pure blissful fascination and so much to see!

Graham and Janice Smith hard at work.

Some of the many pupae for sale.