Notes on Zoom meeting, 19^th March 2021

With the country still in lockdown a committee meeting was held on Zoom.

Participants

• Richard Forrest
• Ken Nye
• David Savory
• Karen Philbin
• Naomi Stevenson

Appointment of Officers

David Savory resigned from his role as Chairman because of pressure of  work commitments, and has agreed to take on an ad-hoc role as a committee member

Richard Forrest was confirmed as Chairman following the procedure set out in the constitution.

Ken Nye was appointed Vice-Chairman, proposed by David Savory and seconded by Richard Forrest. He will take on this in addition to his role as Field Trip Secretary.

Committee Members are:

This new membership is posted on the web site.

Field Trips

No firm plans for field trips have been made to date, although Ken has scouted out a number of potential localities. Many thanks to Ken for his hard work on this.

Current restrictions on movement because of the pandemic make planning for the future tricky. It was agreed that for the time being the group should concentrate on setting up a programme of field trips only for the coming year. The size of groups allowed into quarries may be limited. There is significant interest in the new group, and as only field trips are being offered for the time being and if this is the case places will be awarded on a rota basis.

Insurance

Naomi Stevenson confirmed that the current insurance will run until July of this year.

Events

David Savory has offered Flag Fen as a venue for events and a semi-permanent exhibition for the display of finds by members of the group.

A public event at Flag Fen is planned for later in the year when restrictions are more relaxed. This could include a number of activities and displays, including a fossil preparation workshop, short talks and a larger display of finds. The aim of this is to promote public interest and expand membership of the group;

A programme of talks modelled on those of the SDGS was discussed, but it was concluded that until the new group is fully  up and running it would be premature to go into this in any detail. There were problems with the timing and location of the SDGS talks which made it hard for some members to attend, and these are issues to be resolved.

Talks need not necessarily take place in an enclosed space and the idea was floated of talks at collecting localities about their geology , palaeontology and history.

Bank account.

Karen Philbin reported that the hold Lloyds Bank  have put a hold on setting  up new accounts should be lifted soon, but that there may still be a delay of a couple of months before new accounts become active.

Future committee meetings

We agreed that it would be useful to hold committee meetings immediately after field trips. These need not be long and formal, and could include non-members if they wish. Frequent meetings will help to make sure that decisions are implemented and not just carried over between meetings. This could take place at the venue itself – e.g. the canteen at Ketton Quarry – or in the café at Flag Fen or a local café or pub.