Yorkshire Geology Month
2005
report by Mike Horne FGS
(Read at the "gathering" on July 2nd 2005 but amended slightly afterwards to include some comments made at the meeting.)
The original simple aim of Geology Month was to create events for the public
run by local geologists. A secondary aim was to bring those geologists together
into an informal network to further co-operation and promote Yorkshire Geology
to the public. We also tried to create links with other sciences and geology-related
industries, and emphasise the contribution geology makes to society.
Invitations were sent to local geologists inviting them to take part and a small informal organising committee was created which met three times. Most of the work of the Committee was done by e-mail; all correspondence about events was copied to the other Cttee members.
65 organisations and individual geologists agreed to support the Month. 41 events were organised and took place. Two events were cancelled and five promised events never got finalised.
The collation of event details was quite simple - we asked event organisers to send the details in a set format and this was then pasted into the website and poster. This meant that the event organiser had control over the content. But some event organisers didn't follow this system and then complained that information had been left out on the website.
Here is an indication of the distribution some of the events and the number of people attending based on feedback provided by organisers:
|
Area |
No. of Events |
Events reported |
People attending |
|
Huddersfield |
7 |
7 |
110 |
|
Hull & East Riding |
9 |
9 |
230 |
|
H & ER Roadshows |
2 |
2 |
>320 |
|
Leeds |
4 |
4 |
108 |
|
NEGT |
4 |
||
|
Scarborough |
1 |
1 |
ca 40 |
|
Sheffield |
2 |
2 |
16 |
|
Whitby |
1 |
1 |
16 |
|
YGS |
1 |
||
|
YWT |
2 |
2 |
31 |
Further details of the number of people attending each event and the publicity that was generated can be seen on the Yorkshire Geology Month 2005 website, along with the minutes of the Committee meetings.
Given that Yorkshire Geology Month had no money to pay for organisation or publicity that is quite an achievement! The Organising Committee created a web site to list all the events and produced a full listing which were sent to the geologists were organising events.
The Month was publicised in some sectors of the geological community. We are grateful to the Yorkshire Geological Society for their support through their web site and postal mailings, the Geological Society for links from their web site and for notices in Geoscientist, and to Chris Darman for his early support and short articles in "Down-to-earth". The invitation to take part in YGM2005 was also publicised by the GA and GCG and other organisations.
The success of the events was largely down to local publicity, which is very unpredictable. Sometimes a press release will catch the imagination of the local newspapers resulting in substantial public interest. The other way to really 'take geology to the people' is to have a roadshow where the people are walking past - in the middle of a shopping area!
The organising committee put a substantial amount of time into the running of the month (I estimate this was over 300 hours) and received a little help with the cost of printing and postage. We have also made contact with several geologists and organisations and have any good starting database work from in the future. And we have tried to create a meeting to bring all the people together so that they can meet each other and discuss matters of mutual interest.
Given more time and some funding we could have achieved more. Here are some things that could have gone better and should be considered if Yorkshire Geology Month was to take place again:-
