Hull Geological Society

 Secretary's Annual Report for 2005-2006

I hope you will excuse me for splitting the report into sections - but it seemed to be logical this year.

 Summer Programme 2005.

 The Summer Programme included:- field meetings led by Barrie Heaton, Geoff Featherstone, Mike Horne and Stuart Jones; special public field trips for Yorkshire Geology Month led by Barrie Heaton, Derek Gobbett, Mike Horne and Nigel Whittington; Geology Roadshows at Hornsea Museum and the Hull and East Riding Museum; and a Society Dinner organised by Chris Blackhurst.

 Winter Meetings 2005-6.

 The Winter Programme has included lectures by Ben Gearey, Bob Mauer, Camilla Nichol, Jane Bunting and Terry Rockett. There was also a Members' Evening with talks by Don Berry, Mike Horne, Paul Richards and Terry Rockett, and a display by Stuart Jones.

 The joint meeting with the Yorkshire Geological Society was a reply to G W Lamplugh's "Open Questions in East Yorkshire Geology" lecture to our Society in 1898. The meeting featured talks by John Catt, Mike Horne, Pete Rawson and Rory Mortimore, and displays by Chris Blackhurst, Dave Turner, Derek Gobbett, Gordon Binns, John Green, Paul Hildreth, Ron Harrison and Stuart Jones.

 Membership.

 During the year Allen Sheilds, Cathie Shannan, Christopher Brogden, David Forth, David Mulliner, Don Berry, Keith Britton, May Pearce, Nigel Hutchings, Robert Booth and Ruth Brisbane-Chippendale have been elected to membership of the Society.

 Matt Stephens resigned from the Society.

 Honorary Life Member Professor John Neale died on Friday 20th January 2006.

 Publishing.

 During the year new articles by John Barrett (from Washington USA), John Catt (of University College London), Gordon Ostler, Mike Horne, Paul Hildreth, Stephen Whitaker and Stuart Jones have been published on the Humberside Geologist Online web-site, as well as the abstracts from the Lamplugh Meeting.

 Humberside Geologist Special Publication Number 1 was published on CD-ROM. This included:- abstracts of the Lamplugh Meeting; sound recordings of the lectures by John Catt, Pete Rawson and Rory Mortimore; text of the papers read by John Catt and Mike Horne; a report of the "In the footsteps of Lamplugh" field meeting by Mike Horne; and photographs of the displays and field meeting by Paul Richards. The CD-ROM was compiled and edited by Mike Horne.

 I am aware that the publication of Humberside Geologist Number 14 is overdue and intend to call an editors meeting after Easter to resolve this. With the advance of technology I hope that we can produce three version of HG14 - in print with some colour pictures, on CD-ROM with high resolution pictures and extra scientific data and on the web with low resolution pictures. Members can choose whether they would like their free copy on paper or CD.

 Paul Richards has been editing a CD-ROM of all back numbers of Humberside Geologist, and this should be available for sale very soon. Paul and I hope to start work on the conversion of Transactions to CD-ROM.

 Research.

 Flamborough - the last two meetings have been affected by weather. This month's meeting was called off because of snow, ice and general coldness. The October 2005 one was very wet - when the rain started to bring gravel down the cliff face and the local fishermen packed up, we decided that it was time to go home!

 The Society also spent a day logging the exposure of the Speeton Shell Bed and collecting samples with Alan Lord of UCL. English Nature had given special permission to collect from this SSSI.

 We have also carried out some logging at a Chalk pit at Knapton.

 Barrie Heaton is monitoring plans for a new pipeline through the Wolds and hopes that a small group from the Society will be able to record the temporary exposures this summer.

 Microscopy Group.

 The Microscopy Group has held twelve meetings during the year. We are grateful to the Geography Department for their continued support. The meetings this summer may be disrupted by building work.

 Museums.

 The Society's Committee has become increasingly concerned about the future of the Geological collections at Hull Museum following the departure of Matt Stephens in the summer of 2004 for a new job in a museum in Cleethorpes. The post of Keeper of Natural History has been "deleted".

 Barrie Heaton and Mike Horne met Bryan Sitch and Jayne Taylor of Hull Museums in November 2005 to raise our concerns and suggest some sources of funding to reinstate the post. We also asked about access to the collection for research or volunteer helpers, and about future donations. We were informed that Staurt Ogilvy of the Yorkshire Museum is visiting the Museum once a month to oversee the geology and natural history collections, and that access was only possible when he was there. The Museum is not accepting any donations for the next three years. Bryan Sitch has since left the Museum to take up a post in Manchester.

 I have also been in discussions with Stefan Ramsden of the East Riding of Yorkshire County Council about the geology displays in the new Treasure House in Beverley. The Society has been offered the opportunity to provide semi-temporary displays for the Treasure House. Also the Treasure House has agreed to accept geological donations, so that our concerns about important specimens being lost or leaving the area due to the freeze on acquisitions in Hull has been addressed.

 Conservation.

 The Society continues to work closely with the East Yorkshire RIGS Group and has donated 25 pounds towards its running costs.

 Mike Horne attended a "GeoValue" seminar in December and Prof Peter Scott will visit us in May for some "GeoValue" survey trials.

 Fundraising.

 We have managed to raise some funds on top of subscriptions and donations through the sale of back numbers of Humberside Geologist.

 We had been sending off used ink jet printer cartridges for recycling, which should have raised 50 pence each. Although I have sent off 173 cartridges myself, the company "Environmental Protection Services" recently ceased trading and their cheque bounced! If you have been recycling cartridges yourself using this scheme, on behalf of the Society I thank you for your help.

The recent offer from Manson Publishing of a discount to members for a bulk order has had a poor response. But will probably raise about 4 pounds for Society Funds.

 We thank members who have made donations to Society funds and those who have signed Gift Aid agreements which allows out Treasurer to reclaim the income tax they have paid. We also thanks members for the donations at meetings towards the postage costs for Down to Earth.

 Yorkshire Geology Month.

 Yorkshire Geology Month 2005 was considered to be a great success, and at the "gathering" in York to review the month those attended voted to run YGM again in 2006.

 By this time last year we had details of 39 events. Eventually 41 events took place and 2 were cancelled. So far this year I know of 24 definite events, but do not yet have details of the Yorkshire Geological Society, Yorkshire Museum, Leeds G A, Dinosaur Coast, and North East Yorkshire Geology Trust events.

 YGM2005 took up a lot of my time, I estimate that I put 250 hours into the organising of the month, as well as organising and leading five local events.

 I would like to thank the Society for agreeing to support YGM and the event organisers for their hard work. I do hope that members will support the Roadshow at the Museums  If you would like to display specimens or posters please contact the organisers in advance (Paul Richard for the Hull event and Nigel Whittington for the Hornsea event).

 I have been less active in YGM2006. I thank the YGM Committee members for picking things up:- Camilla Nichol and Stuart Ogilvy of the Yorkshire Museum, Will Watts from the Dinosaur Coast Project, Anthea Brigstocke and Tony Benfield of the Leeds Geological Association, Mike Windle and Phil Brierly of the North East Geology Trust and Paul Hildreth of the Hull Geological Society.

 Summer Programme 2006

 The planning of the Summer Programme is well underway and includes our traditional field meetings, public field meetings and Roadshows for YGM2006, research visit and a spring clean at Rifle Butts SSSI.  I would like to thank Derek Gobbett, Nigel Whittington, Paul Hildreth, Stuart Jones and terry Rockett for their help in preparing the Programme.

 Thanks.

 On behalf of the Society I thank the Geography Department for their continued support and hospitality; our guest speakers for the lectures; our field trip leaders for the field trips; Janet Binns for the cakes for the Lamplugh Lecture meeting; Paul Richards for his work on the CD-ROMs; Stuart for his Library skills; Nigel for continuing to maintain our website and publicise our meetings; Barrie for looking after the funds and helping me keep track of membership records; President Paul Hildreth and the Committee for their hard work during the year.

Mike Horne.

14th March 2006.

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