Minutes of the discussion at the start of the first CAGG meeting which was aimed at establishing key committee members and basic operating principles of the organisation. Readership is CAGG members. These minutes have not yet been approved by the committee.

Introduction

We are lucky because Cornwall has a very complex geology which you can recognise by looking at geological maps. It is easy to study, especially from the long coastline.

To begin, there is a draft constitution which defines several committee members. We don't need to instantiate all of them immediately, just the key offices of Secretary and Treasurer.

There is some money available from CHAHP, perhaps £500 - £1000 for geology funds. In addition, the killas quarry project will be happening and £500 from that will also be signed over to the organisation. This will be a good initial resource for books and equipments.

The draft constitution states that the main committee members cannot be professional geologists. That's so that the club remains focussed on the needs of amateurs.

The constitution was drafted as a vehicle to formalise the group so that it can be insured and a bank account can be set up.

Present at the meeting are a few members of the Saltash U3A geology group. Calum has been working with them since they were first set up. They tend to concentrate on field work.

Defined posts

The chair

The main function of this role is to control meetings.

Helen Taverner

Secretary

The main function of the Secretary is to make meeting notes. Other functions often associated with the Secretary role have been distributed to other committee members.

Peter Jackson

Treasurer

Responsible for managing the funds of the group. A bank account will be set up with some bank that is reasonably accessible, probably with a branch in Saltash.

Pat Fitzsimmons

Education and training officer.

Helps with education and training on group or individual basis.

Calum Beeson

Meetings and Field Trips officer.

This role is to plan and organise meetings and field trips. We aspire to have a field trip and meeting each month. The Liskerrett Centre will be the usual meeting place. The most popular day for meetings is currently the third Friday of the month.

This role has not been filled yet

Membership Secretary

Manages member subscriptions.

Tina Hitchens

Public Relations and fundraising officer

Someone to promote outside the club what happens in the club. This might include writing articles for local press. The value of this role is to get the club known, which can help to facilitate access to sites.

Brigitte Mann. Brigitte is willing to carry out the public relations aspect of the role, but not the fundraising.

Equipment Officer

Manages the club's equipment and library. The actual material may be located in a number of places which the equipment officer tracks.

Kevin Wright

Information Officer

Writes down information about talks, perhaps in the form of a review. Also narratives of field trips.

This role is not yet filled.

Membership fees

Calum passed round an anonymous questionnaire for people to indicate what range of fees might be acceptable. The outcome suggested that £10 would be an appropriate amount.

Focus

Calum raised the question of what people most wanted to get out of the organisation - formal knowledge, practical experience, understanding of local formations and so on.

Learning how to understand what you see around you can be quite tricky but is rewarding. There are also a number of practical techniques to learn, such us working out which way up rocks are. This seemed to be a popular direction with those present.

It is possible we may form a junior group if there is enough interest.

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