The programme for this season’s monthly Zoom talks is now on the membership page.

Richard is one of the most active English mineral collectors in the last 70 years and has been been able to build his collection when access to locations was perhaps easier than it is today. He has kept meticulous notes of the locations he researched which he has recorded in the form of a card index. Richard has very generously given permission for his card index to be scanned, and this is now available on our publications pages. Our grateful thanks go to Tom Costes for undertaking the monumental task of scanning thousands of index cards.

Please see a note on the member’s page about a number of mineral journals that are no longer needed and looking for a new home.

Any members who are going to be on holiday in the Lake District this summer may like to know about a special exhibition at John Ruskin’s home, Brantwood, on Coniston Water.

Please check out the Brantwood website nearer the time for more details, opening hours, cost etc.

Treasures of the Earth: The Mineral World of John Ruskin

The date of our next Zoom meeting has changed as our speaker, Richard Unitt, has been forced to move his talk to Friday 15th May. We are looking forward to him telling us about Raman Spectroscopy.

This month’s zoom talk is on Wednesday and not Friday as usual. Brian Young will be talking on “The North Pennine Orefield: Some New Perspectives”. Brian can speak with authority on this topic as he was the BGS District Geologist for Northern England, before retiring from the British Geological Survey.

Both the March 2026 Newsletter and the Junior Magazine have just been released and are excellent reads. The Junior Magazine can be found from the link on the home page and members can download the Society Newsletter from the Members’ page.

Our speaker this Friday will be Karen Hudson-Edwards, Professor in Sustainable Mining at the Camborne School of Mines and Environment and Sustainability Institute, University of Exeter. She will be talking on Mine Wastes: Environmental Liability or Valuable Resource? Please visit the members page to log-in; the waiting room will open at 19.15.

The latest copy of the journal is now with the printers but if you are impatient to read it you will find a digital copy available to members on the Members’ Page.

You will also find the Field Trip programme for the next quarter. The first trip is on the 7th March so do not delay in signing up. The list is not complete and more will be added when the Field Trip Co-ordinators have finalised details.

The ASM next year will run from the 13th to the 15th March at Exeter Hall in Kidlington near Oxford. Some members may recognise this as the venue for the Oxford Mineral & Fossil Shows and delegates will be able to attend the show on the Sunday. Optional trips on Friday will be hosted by the Oxford Museum of Natural History and the Natural History Museum, London. More details will be circulated when the full programme is in place.