Yorkshire Geology Month
Advice for event organisers -
"Events" for Yorkshire Geology month need not be big events involving a lot of planning. All we ask is that they aim to take geology to the public. So you could organise - a poster display in a local library, a Roadshow lasting an hour or two with geologists identifying specimens brought by members of the public, a short walk around your town centre looking at shopfronts and building stones, a walk on the beach to see what rocks and fossils people can pick up, a guided tour of a cemetery looking at gravestones, a children's painting competition at half-term, a traditional field trip, lecture or slide show.
A good way to involve large numbers of people is to run a Roadshow in a popular place, such as a shopping area. All you need is a couple of tables, some enthusiastic "experts", some colourful posters, some large display specimens (that are not rare or valuable) and some good/lucky publicity. Remember to engage the people who bring in specimens - every specimen has a story to tell - always enthuse and never say "Its just a such-and-such -- there very common!". And remember to hand them a leaflet about your local society and Geology Month!.
Charges for your event - if you wish to charge those taking part or ask for a donation towards costs or towards the funds of your local geological society, then please organise that yourself. The organisers of YGM2005 are not asking for any payment towards the costs or expenses of the organising committee.
Tides - if you are organising your event on the coast you will need to avoid getting trapped by an incoming tide. Tide tables are not usually published until December - but you can predict the tides for yourself if you have a diary which shows the phases of the moon. Click here to find out how.....
Limiting numbers - when running public events the number of people attending can be very unpredictable - for instance one city-geology public walk I led was attended by one other person, whilst on another similar walk there was a crowd of over 300! If you feel that you wish to restrict numbers one suggestion is to force people wishing to attend to book, even if the event is free. Make the general details of the event public along with a contact telephone number that people have to ring to get the exact time and meeting place.
Accessibility - A downloadable booklet entitled "organising accessible events" is available from the Disability Rights Commission website in PDF, Word or RTF formats.
Once the details of an event have been published try to avoid changing them or canceling the event. Changing the time or meeting place will only cause confusion. If the press gets the details wrong then request that they print an apology with the correct details; but also try to arrange that someone be there at the start of the 'wrong' event, to explain the problem to anyone who does attend expecting the event to take place. If interested beginners turn up and find that leader is not there then they are likely to lose interest in geology as a whole!
Writing press releases - the space for your piece in a newspaper may be limited, so it may well be edited with the last few paragraphs being removed - so write your press release with the important information first, rather having a long lead up to a conclusion. The paper may prefer to receive your information in electronic format - that way they can cut and paste it straight into the paper and there is less chance of the details becoming confused! There may be some days of the week when your local paper tends to be short of news - try to send your press releases in for those days.