British Birds Rarities Committee
Terms of Reference and Constitution
Revised December 2020
1.1 Background & Function
1.2 Aims
1.3 Definitions
2.1 Status and composition
2.1.1 Status
2.1.2 Composition
2.2 Voting Members
2.2.1 Role of Voting Members
2.2.2 Qualification & Geographical Spread of Voting Members
2.2.3 Selection of Voting Members
2.2.4 Period of office of Voting Members
2.2.5 Co-opting Voting Members
2.3 Chair
2.3.1 Role of Chair
2.3.2 Qualification of Chair
2.3.3 Selection & Appointment of Chair
2.3.4 Period of office of Chair
2.3.5 Appointing a Vice-chair
2.3.6 Temporary Chair
2.4 Secretary
2.4.1 Role of Secretary
2.4.2 Qualification of Secretary
2.4.3 Selection & Appointment of Secretary
2.4.4 Period of office of Secretary
2.5 Other Roles
2.5.1 Support provided to the Committee
2.5.2 Work for outside Organisations
3.1 The Annual General Meeting- AGM
3.1.1 Frequency
3.1.2 Introduction & Matters Covered
3.1.3 Those Attending
3.1.4 Voting procedures
3.1.5 Additional Sessions on Identification issues
3.2 Other Meetings
3.2.1 Identification Meetings
3.2.2 Electronic ‘Meetings’
4.1 Introduction
4.1.1 Definition of a BBRC Rarity
4.1.2 Removal of a BBRC Rarity
4.1.3 Helping Counties
4.2 Taxa considered by BBRC
4.2.1 Introduction & Species considered
4.2.2 Sub-species considered
4.2.3 Indeterminate Species/ Sub-species pairs or groups
5.1 Introduction
5.1.1 The Assessment Cycle
5.1.2 Approximate Time to complete an Assessment
5.2 Submission of Records
5.2.1 Introduction
5.2.2 Submission Forms & procedures
5.2.3 Held records
5.2.4 Liaison with County recorders
5.2.5 Confidentiality
5.3 Assessment Procedure
5.3.1 Introduction
5.3.2 Voting method
5.3.3 Voting Accept or Not Proven
5.4 The Voting Decision
5.4.1 Finalising the votes
5.4.2 Recirculation Procedure
5.4.3 Advising the outcome
5.5 Reconsideration of earlier records
5.5.1 Reviewing an individual record
5.5.2 Reviewing species
5.6 Withdrawal of Accepted records (or of a record In Circulation)
5.7 Records of Species new to Britain
5.8 Rarities of possibly captive origin
6.1 Annual Report
6.2 Rarities Committee news and announcements
6.3 Published notes on First for Britain
6.4 From the Rarities Committee Files
6.5 The BBRC Archive
6.5.1 Location
6.5.2 Use of Records
7.1 Improvements to the Constitution (public involvement with the Committee)
7.2 BBRC is not a ‘Court of Law’
7.3 Requests regarding non-BBRC Rarities
APPENDIX I: Definition of Sea Areas covered
APPENDIX II: Recording Area & Bird Observatories
APPENDIX III: Guidelines for Acceptance of a First for Britain
APPENDIX IV: Species & Sub-species pairs & groups
APPENDIX V: Reviews of Individual records & Series of records
Constitution written and prepared by Nigel Hudson, published here 2015. Revised and updated Dec 2020 by Paul French.