Chapter 4 - Membership

Membership of the Society from 1984 to 2025

Membership of the Society has always been open to all, regardless of qualifications or experience. In 1984 applicants had to be nominated and seconded at a general meeting to be elected to membership, so they had to have met two members of the Society previously to achieve that. This is still technically true but the application form now states “please arrange for me to be elected” and the nominating and seconding by the Officers is assumed. New applicants are added to the mailing lists before they are elected. Then as now non-members are welcome to attend the meetings of the Society free of charge, though donations are not refused.

The Society does have historical membership records and based on these some trends can be seen.

Length of membership in the HGS covering 1984 to 2025

Analysis of the number of years members remain in the Society shows that 28% of members joining only pay one year’s subscription before leaving. A small proportion of those never even paid their first annual subscription after being elected; for this reason new applicants are now required to pay their first subscription in advance. 45% of members have left after two years. In reality most of these are removed from the mailing lists because they are in arrears, rather than having resigned. Reminding lapsed members to pay their subscriptions generates a considerable amount of work for the Treasurer and Secretary each year.

Number of members joining the HGS each year.

The number of members joining per year can be skewed slightly by the time of year that we elect them and occasionally by a local teacher encouraging students to join the Society. 

The information from membership lists indicates that there have always been more men than women members within the Society, but there does not seem to be a trend to be observed.

Geographical distribution of HGS members.

Key: clockwise - pale blue is Hull postcode, orange is other HU postcodes, grey is YO postcodes, yellow is other Yorkshire postcodes, dark blue is Lincolnshire and green is other areas.

It can be seen from membership address records that there is a trend towards a wider geographic catchment area. Does this reflect a general population trend in the area? Is the increase in a wider distribution from 2013 to 2025 due to increased access to the Society’s activities via the internet and the more recent use of Zoom for some of the HGS lectures?

Total number of HGS members each year.

The total number of members in the Society has changed over the past 40 years. Is there a correlation between the peak membership of the Society and Sheila Rogers, Lynden Emery and Mike Horne teaching adult education classes for the University of Hull until the closure of the department of LifeLong Learning in 2013? There seems to a definite decline in total membership over the last 10 years or so, but is this something in common with other scientific clubs? Here is the graph of the total membership of the Yorkshire Geological Society for the same time period, for comparison, which shows a decline in numbers starting in the early 1980s [source YGS annual reports published in the Proceedings.].

Total number of YGS members each year.

For the purposes of this history an informal survey of the membership was sent to about 70 members by e-mail (see Appendix no. 9 <insert link>) and this showed that members initially mostly joined the Society to keep up to date with the science generally and to study local geology. In particular most are interested in Quaternary geology and palaeontology; this is reflected by the popularity of field meetings the Holderness coast and the fields of our research. This survey also showed that they most valued participating in fieldwork and socialising.

The Society also has elected some Honorary Life Members: these are defined as “any person who has rendered signal service to the Society, or who is distinguished for the pursuit of the objects of the Society” [quote from the HGS Rules]. Several members of the University staff in the old (pre-1988) Geology Department were either Head of Department or taught night classes were elected as Honorary Members. Some long standing Officers have also been elected as Honorary Members. Patrick Boylan was elected as an Honorary Member in 1967 when he left Hull for a new job and always said that he thought it was a mistake to award the honorary status to someone so young; he did however make some generous donations to the Society over the years. Two past-Presidents (who are no longer members) did request honorary membership because they could not afford to pay the retired rate of subscription on their teacher’s pension. [Personal note – when the author was elected as an Honorary Member in 1993, his family were elected as members and continue to pay the annual subscription, because he thought that he could not remind members to pay their subscriptions if he was not contributing.] Link to list of Honorary Members.

It has been suggested that the Society tries to fill the gap left by the closures of the Centre for Lifelong Learning at the University of Hull and the ending of geology courses in schools and colleges (Speed 2021); however that is beyond the remit, funding and capabilities of our charity. The 2021 survey also showed that members’ top two priorities for improving the Society were attracting new younger members and encouraging student membership.

The Society continues to be open to all regardless of qualifications or experience; everyone is welcome to join in the fun!

  Back to Humberside Geologist number 18 contents page 

copyright Hull Geological Society 2025