Meetings.

In the early 1980s the Society held three sorts of meetings – monthly guest lectures in the Winter, monthly field meetings in the Summer and a Members’ Evening once every other year. The lectures in the Winter Programme were held in the lecture theatre of the Geology Department, which occupied the ground floor of what is now called the Cohen Building at the University of Hull. Although there was no room hire fee for the meetings the Society usually bought a text book to be donated to the Departmental Library to show its appreciation.  The guest speakers were often friends of the University lecturers or contacts from the Yorkshire Geological Society. Usually Hull University staff were invited to present talks in December and January when winter weather might have made long distance travel difficult for a guest speaker. At the biennial Members’ Evenings our membership had the opportunity to present a short talk on topics that interested them or display specimens. The Annual General Meeting was held in March, and still is. The new Officers and Committee are elected and the Secretary and Treasurer present their annual reports before a Presidential Address or a lecture by a guest speaker.

The Summer Programme of field meetings ran from April to September. Local members would meet at Cottingham Green and share lifts to the field localities to reduce the number of vehicles driven, bridge tolls and parking fees. Later the University of Hull was the local meeting place and very recently lift sharing using an App on the mobile ‘phone has been introduced. The field trips were led by a variety of Society members, some of whom had an expertise in topics, such as Lynden Emery on the Speeton Clay, Ken Fenton on Jurassic plants and the Quaternary, Ron Harrison on glacial erratics and Felix Witham on the marine Middle Jurassic and the Chalk. Occasionally the field excursions were led by guest leaders. A few field meetings were postponed at short notice for reasons beyond our control, notably our visits to Boulby Potash Mine due to working issues and boats trips at Flamborough due to rough seas. With only a few exceptions that I can think of, we really try to not cancel a meeting once it has been advertised. There are lists of most of our meetings over the last 40 years Appendices 5 to 8 of this volume.

Over the years more variety has been added to our events and they have become less formal and more home grown. Sometimes these changes were brought about by circumstances beyond our control, such as the Covid lockdowns of 2020 and 2021, others have just happened slowly.

Although the number of field meetings per year has increased the number of field trip leaders seems to have declined. In an attempt to remedy this a workshop was held in 2008 to pass on the simple but necessary skills and it later formed the topic for a Club Night (Horne 2020 and Speed et al. 2019).

For a few years with the increasing cost of fuel the Society hired a minibus and the members attending shared the cost. The minibuses were originally hired from local colleges who were not using them at the weekend and were driven by the HGS members who taught at those colleges. Some of these trips were to museums to view their geological collections, such as Leicester Museum and the National Stone Centre. Whilst most of the field trips were led by a member of the Society with specialist knowledge some experimental trips were tried, by simply using a published field guide.

We have tried some weekend field trips to study the geology of other areas, but these have not been very well attended. There was a weekend in Norfolk in 1994 hosted by the Geological Society of Norfolk which was attended by eight members. Other attempts to organise longer distance field trips involving accommodation have not been so successful. However we have hosted weekend field meetings for other Societies such as the Geological Society of Norfolk, GA, YGS, and Hertfordshire Geological Society, when our local experts Felix Whitham, Lynden Emery and Mike Horne, have demonstrated East Yorkshire Geology. You can read more about the joint meetings we have hosted in Chapter 8 of this volume. <hyperlink>

Some field trips are now aimed at the public rather than being just for members. Some of these have been urban geology walks (started by Ron Harrison) and other walks in Cemeteries to study the stones used in monuments (started by Jim Darmody). Some field trips are scenic walks to study how geology affects our landscape, such as Donald Beveridge’s walks in the Kiplingcotes area, Derek Gobbett’s walk in the Thixendale area and Martin Longshaw’s Wold Newton Walks in Lincolnshire. Others have been walks and ‘fossil fossicks’ on the beach. Some of those have been very well attended: over 100 people attended one beach walk and one cemetery walk which was more than we could really cope with.

Our adoption of Rifle Butts SSSI in 1987 led to regular conservation visits to the site to clear away any loose scree and vegetation in the spring so that summer visitors could experience the geological exposure at its best. The Society introduced a barbecue to that meeting to enhance the social side of volunteering. There had been a few social events after field meetings before (e.g. Newbald in 1990 and Beverley in 1992).

Roadshows have become regular events in the Society’s calendar and have been held in the Hull and East Riding Museum, the Ferens Art Gallery, Hull Minster, Trinity Square, Hornsea Museum, RSPB Bempton, Flamborough Village Hall and a hall in Driffield. Our first Roadshow was in 1995 at the Hull and East Riding Museum in High Street. The one at Hornsea Museum was started in 2008 and occurs on the same day each year (August Bank Holiday Saturday) and attracts regular visitors. At the Roadshows members display specimens from their collections and offer advice to the visiting members of the public. There is usually a “Finds Desk” where “experts” from the Society attempt to identify specimens that visitors have brought with them and offer advice about conservation and storage. We refuse to give valuations. Donations for this service have helped to pay the cost of hiring the venue. Sometimes we have to give the bad news that the “meteorite” which has potential high sales value is really a piece of industrial slag. We have occasionally sold second hand geology books that have been donated to the Society at our larger Roadshows to raise funds for the Society, particularly at Flamborough Village Hall. A “lucky dip” was introduced allowing young people to buy mystery geological specimens donated by members for a nominal fee. Other geological clubs have been invited to have displays at some of the Roadshows: Kingston Lapidary Society, Yorkshire Geological Society and the Dinostar private museum from Hull’s Humber Street. Sometimes members display geology related materials, such as handmade jewellery by Patty McAlpin. We do not allow the sale of geological specimens for personal profit. At the Flamborough Village Hall Roadshows Stuart Jones’ sister Bronwen Turton provided catering for visitors and volunteers. The Roadshows are fun and a good way to pass on our enthusiasm to the public. Unfortunately when we have to pay for room hire we rarely cover the cost through donations and sales. Occasionally we recruit a new member or two; if we ran them solely with the aim of recruitment they would be considered unsuccessful.

The Society supported and funded the setting up of Yorkshire Geology Month in 2005 and 2006 and has contributed at least one event every year since. The aim of YGM is to hold geological events for the public in the month of May, taking geology to the public rather than expecting them to visit the geology. So events like public lectures on popular topics, Roadshows, beach and urban walks are perfect, but visits to remote deserted mines, high cliffs or working quarries are not.

Mike Horne taught a cycle of night classes at the University of Hull including a “Fossils under the Microscope” Course. One year the students asked what they could do to take their micopalaeontological interest further and that is how the Microscopy Evenings began. These ran from 2004 to 2016 with the occasional whole day workshop for beginners. At these meetings members would study and share samples that they had collected and processed. When the Centre For Lifelong Learning (formerly Adult Education) closed at the University of Hull in 2013 it created a gap in the students’ routine. The Society started to hold Club Nights which were intended to be a geological equivalent of a “book group” with the members deciding the monthly theme. Mike Horne acts as the facilitator, but from the outset made it clear that he was not being a tutor. These are informal evenings where members do what would be considered “practical work” in a formal geology course – examine, identify and chat about hand specimens or occasionally maps, books or photographs. A later variation on the Club Night is the Quiz Night in December where participants bring five questions or specimens for the other members to answer or identify. Some festive food and drink may also be consumed at the December meetings.

The Society has held some conference type events to mark anniversaries in its history with an afternoon of lectures and displays followed by a formal dinner and sometimes associated with themed field meetings (e.g. 1988 and 2013). Sometimes there have been formal dinners in recognition of a member or informal dinners. The Society organised annual afternoon lecture meetings for the YGS at Hull University from 1996 to 2016 when the reformed Geology Department took over that role (see chapter 8 for more details of these).

The lockdowns during the Covid Pandemic of 2020 and 2021 forced the Society to stop holding indoor meetings. In order to provide activities for members we started to hold virtual meetings by video conferencing software. Some of these early lectures were very successful attracting significant numbers of non-members. We have continued to hold these meetings because they enable members who live further away from Hull to contribute talks to the Society, such as John Connor in California, and to attend meetings that they would not normally travel for.

During the Covid Pandemic we also started to use a members’ only social media site to hold Virtual Club Nights where members can upload photographs on the selected topic and comment on them. There is also a public facing social media site to promote our public events such as Roadshows and geology walks.

At the time of writing (October 2025) the Society runs a blended programme of meetings – actual and virtual Club Nights, actual and virtual lectures, urban and scenic walks, traditional field meetings, geoconservation visits to Rifle Butts SSI with a barbeque, Quiz nights, photo sharing on Facebook, &c.

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