I received this today (for rings I read out of GM!) and post it here for those who it may also concern:

Dear ringreaders of the Mediterranean gull colour ringing projects of
Belgium, the Netherlands and France,

In the past, you have been involved in these projects, mainly by sending
colour ring readings to Camille Duponcheel and myself. May I take the
opportunity to thank you again for your valuable contribution to these
projects.

For years, Camille has been very succesfully dealing with the encoding of
the data, kindly answering with a staggering reaction time to the observers.
As some of you have already been informed, Camille, aged 81, passed suddenly
away on the 15th of October. His funerals took place the following week; a
tribute was rendered to him for his very important contribution to the
different projects on behalf of the whole Med gull community. He will be
terribly missed. Our condolences are going to his wife and son.

From now onwards, I will be in charge of Camille’s encoding job for the
colour ringed Med gulls from Belgium, the Netherlands and France.

Here follow a few suggestions for a future efficient handling of your
colour ring readings of French, Dutch and Belgian colour ringed
Mediterranean gulls.

* Can you please send only by email (not WhatsApp) your white and
green colour ring readings to this new addres melanoring@gmail.com
<mailto:melanoring@gmail.com> . Please do not use anymore Camille’s address
and my address to report Med gull colourring readings.
* In order to keep the encoding time to a minimum and save me time for
further analysis of the data, may I kindly ask to the observers, and
certainly the frequent observers, to group their ring reading on a monthly
base, preferably using the attached Excel file. Many thanks. See first sheet
of the Excel file for the English version. 
* When you’re not sure of a reading, please mention as many details as
possible (age, position of colour and metal rings, pictures, which part of
the code is not certain). Do not send unsure readings without a comment.
* Unless you reported a ring reading site in the past, please detail
that site as much as possible; paramount is a correct latitude and
longitude, preferably with a Google maps pin; receiving from you the
commune/municipality is also VERY helpful!
* Always add pictures of the ring reading if you took some; preferably
via WeTransfer or similar link if many.
* Mention first name, last name and email address of all the
observers.
* If you mention ring readings from other programmes (yellow rings
from Germany, UK and Ireland, red and blue rings, etc …) in your email,
please specify in the text that you will take care of sending these to the
appropriate coordinators, to be found on
cr-birding.org/colourprojects; if you really cannot find out, I’m
ready to do it for you, but please be aware that this is very time-consuming
for me.
* If you would still have some unreported ring readings, please do
send these to me; they remain very valuable.

Last but not least, if the above directives are not doable for you, may
this not refrain you of reporting your readings in a way that suits you!

In return of your ring readings, you will receive the life lists of “your”
Mediterranean gulls, albeit not as speedy as my good friend Camille did!

Until now, I have created 17 different national/regional Med gull focused
WhatsApp groups to foster interaction between ringreaders within a
particular country/region; now and then, I post some Med gull info to these
groups. Actually, the 17 following groups exist: Belgium & The Netherlands,
Bretagne, Normandie, Channel Islands, Kent, Isle of Wight, West Sussex,
Hampshire, Dorset, Devon, Cornwall, Norfolk, Suffolk, Wales, Ireland,
Atlantic coast of Spain, Portugal. On the condition that you’re a Med gull
ringreader in one of these areas, please mention which one(s) and your
mobile phone number if you want to be part of it. Please take the following
rules for these groups into account: only Med gull stuff, no ringreadings to
be sent via WhatsApp group, a positive dynamic 😉.

This email also to let you know that the analysis of the colour ringing
data has started with the Belgian-Dutch-French data, hopefully soon
completed with other data, and in collaboration with other people. The
actual focus concerns migration strategies. A super interesting task, but
very time-consuming. More to follow later. Hence, your future colourring
readings remain very valuable in this regard.

Looking forward to hearing from you soon again. Any comments and
suggestions are more than welcome. Many thanks again for your contribution!

Best regards,

Renaud

R. Flamant

Renaud.Flamant@gmail.com <mailto:Renaud.Flamant@gmail.com> 

Belgium

European coordinator for the colour ringing programmes of the Mediterranean
gull in Europe