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 Secretary's Annual Report for 2001-2002

Our 2001 Summer Programme was affected by the Foot and Mouth outbreak, which meant that we were unable to visit many inland exposures. Rifle Butts SSSI was closed for most of the summer, so we were unable to clean the exposure. There were two walks for beginners led by Nigel Whittington and field meetings to South Cave, Elsham and South Bay at Scarborough. We did manage to do trips outside our usual area - to Caphouse Colliery and a joint meeting with the Huddersfield Geology Group who made us most welcome. I did like the idea of ending the meeting with a slice of fruit cake!

In April two long-standing members died. Cyril Dutton lived in Weybridge but was a regular contributor to Humberside Geologist. Harry Thompson had been a member for longer than I have and played a major role in the design and erection of the Rifle Butts shelter.

Dr E V Wright MA, MBE, died in May, aged 85. Ted was an honorary member of the Society and had also been awarded an honorary Doctorate by Hull University. Ted, and his brother Willy, had an interest in geology from an early age. They published their first joint geology article in 1933 about the Holocene deposits of North Ferriby. Their main local geological interest was in the Chalk of the Yorkshire Wolds and they published an article listing all the Chalk Pits in the area in 1942. Ted was probably better known as a marine archaeologist and the finder of the Ferriby Boats.

The Rock and Fossil Roadshow at Hull and East Riding Museum on 26th May 2001 was well attended. There were four exhibitors - Kingston Lapidary Club, Byron Blessed from Nature's Wonders in Whitby, Hull Museums with fossil plaster casting, a dinosaur trail and a computer display and our Society. Felix Whitham had brought a variety of fossils from his collection for display and Nigel Whittington displayed photographs of dinosaur footprints from the Yorkshire Coast. David Hill, Chris Leach, Mike Horne and Terry Rockett helped on our stand. We saw some very nice specimens: including a collection of minerals, a mammoth's tooth and Echinocorys found as erratics, some large ammonites from the Malton area, a fossil fish from China and several fossil plants.  We were also asked to identify a polished flint hand axe and a Roman coin. A photo of the event was published in the Hull Daily Mail under the heading "History Lesson".

In July, Steve Temperley paid tribute to Mark Piasecki with a special memorial lecture entitled "The tectonic evolution of the Scottish Highlands: what we know and what we owe to Marek Piasecki". The meeting in the Friends' Meeting House, was well attended and as well as members their were former colleagues and students in the audience.

The joint meeting with the Yorkshire Geological Society this year was a memorial to Dr Lewis Penny entitled "Pleistocene World". As well as four speakers there were several displays from the Quaternary of East Yorkshire, including material from the Lewis Penny collection at the University. At the start of the meeting John Neale gave a personal tribute to Dr Penny, describing his research and contributions to the Geology Department at the University. The meeting was attended by over 90 people, including members of the Penny family.

The winter lectures have all been well attended this year. We have had lectures from Trevor Ford, Peter Scott, Martyn Pedley, Huw Griffiths and Paul Wignall. The Members' Evening suffered a bit from technical problems, but included contributions from Terry Rockett, Nigel Whittington, David Hill, Ron Harrison and Mike Horne.

The 2002 field meetings started early with a visit to Hornsea on 19th January that was recorded by BBC Radio Humberside for their "Sense of Place" series to be broadcast in April [and later was on Radio 4].

Six new members have joined the Society during the year. There are 125 members at present on our mailing list, including six honorary members and two institutional members. Thirty three members live in Hull, 39 in the surrounding area, 37 are "out of town" members (live too far away to travel to evening lectures regularly), and three live overseas. There are some members who have not paid their subscriptions and their names will be removed from the membership list this summer.

As our year draws to a close I would like to pay tribute Felix Whitham and Lynden Emery who are retiring from their very active roles in the Society. Felix had been our Treasurer for 37 years and Lynden has been an active member for 33 years. I am sure that we are all grateful for their hard work for the Society as Officers and Committee members as well as leading field meetings, doing displays, giving talks at our meetings and contributing to Humberside Geologist. I am also personally indebted to them for helping me start to understand the Chalk and Speeton Clay.

I would like to thank the Officers and Committee for their help over the year; Chris Blackhurst for organising the annual dinner; field meeting leaders; members who helped out at meetings; Janet Binns for the catering for "Pleistocene World"; Hull University and Hull Museums for their continued support and hospitality.

Mike Horne, Hon. General Secretary, 4th March 2002

 

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