Peter Jackson
Pat Fitzsimmons
Calum Beeson
Tina Hitchings
Megan Shute
Bob Jay

Emma Stockley
Anne Bolt

The meeting was chaired by PF.

Previous minutes

Ongoing actions:

• CB intends to produce a banner in time for the AGM. A budget of up to £100 was agreed for the banner and £150 for printing CAGG leaflets.

Finance

There is £1023.94 in the bank and £42.75 in cash, making at total of £1066.69.

PF commented that the income from meetings is lower than last year, probably because we have more members attending. Our balance is £200 higher than last year.

Programme

Talks

2017-03-17

Black smokers

2017-04-21

Kingsley Rickard: ₃₃As - its production and use. He will charge £40.00 and the talk will last about one hour (PF is in communication with him to arrange the details).

2017-05-19

Bring your own rock night. Handheld XRF. A risk assessment has been done and appropriate precautions are planned.

2017-06-16

Whatever happened to the Dinosaurs?

2017-07-21

Geohazards and global killers.

2017-08-18

Glaciation and snowball earth.

2017-09-15

Volcanoes - the fire mountains.

2017-10-20

Infinitely variable rocks.

2017-11-17

Mars vs Earth - which has the best geology?

Field trips

2017-03-25

Trebarwith Strand: beware unexploded lava bombs.

2017-04-29

Golithan glaciers (Investigate reported evidence of glacial striations on granite boulders).

2017-05-27

Rocky Valley - does exactly what it says on the tin.

2017-07-29

Luxulyan - how to play with water.

2017-08-26

Here we go round the caradon mines. Possible start at Tokenbury, where there is Trevallicks. Perhaps lunch at the Cheesewring where it might be advisable for people to book.

2017-09-30

Who moved Brent Tor?

2017-10-28

Padstow Doom Bar.

2017-11-25

Bossiney mystery trip (The idea of a mystery trip is to analyse the site with no specific geological preconceptions).

2017-12-28

Second annual geology games. Probably at Millendreath if the café is open. There were 14 people at last year's event, so it may be worth contacting the café in advance.

Publicity deadline is 2017-03-15, so as soon as this schedule is confirmed the information should be sent to AB.

TH mentioned feedback that we should try to specify the meeting places more clearly in advance.

In 2018, Easter Saturday is 2018-03-31, so we should move the date for that field meeting.

April and May are the months with most risk that CB may not be available. We should book an external speaker for 2018-04-20.

In 2018, the 40th International Mining Games will take place on 2018-03-29 thru 2018-04-01, hosted at King Edward Mine. One aspect of the competition is the processing of mining data (there are also more entertainingly physical aspects).

AGM planning

The agenda will be something like:

1. Previous minutes
2. Treasurer's report
3. Membership report
4. Publicity report
5. Education officer's report
6. Election of Officers
7. Topics and field trips

Committee members present informally agreed to continue in their roles.

It was agreed that we will not modify our fees or explicitly trawl for extra committee members.

Refreshments as usual.

Publicity

We will also investigate producing the programme in the form of a robust printed A5 leaflet that can be distributed more widely. A print run of 1000 copies is suggested.

Social media

• we can enter information about specific CAGG events;
• we can correct any misinformation that appears.

June field trip

There was discussion about logistics. It will probably be a 9 or 16-seat vehicle but this may not have room for all of the luggage. We may decide to hire an additional van for separate 1-way trips to carry luggage to and from the event.

Reading the Hurlers status

All the low resolution data has been transcribed, consisting of about 13,000 measurements.

More photography is needed, which CB intends to carry out at weekends starting somewhen around 2017-03-11. He estimates that this is about 5 or 6 days field work. This may benefit from a helper to manage the illumination (PNJ is potentially available).

The images then have to be processed, which will be done by another person ("Luke"?) in order to remove a source of bias. Some adjustments to the raw images for contrast are manually applied before processing with a specialised package.

The publication process will begin after the presentation on 2017-05-26. It will take the form of a paper in an archaeological journal authored by Jacky Nowakowsi, Emma Stockley and Calum Beeson. A separate paper will be published in a suitable national geological journal. The process of publication can be lengthy (up to 3 years), especially if modifications are required by the journal's review processes. In the meantime it is likely that some summary information could be placed in the public domain.

Details of the 2017-05-26 event at Carnglaze will be planned next week. The site can hold 400 people, though if there are likely to be more than 100 people attending there will be a need for extra help to manage the parking.

There are currently still spaces available for the Stonehenge trip. Entry there is free as an "educational group". Iain Rowe may be available to act as a guide for us.

Next meeting

Any other business

• CB has been approached to be a member of a geoconservation subcommittee of the Cornwall Wildlife Trust. This often involves sites that are not accessible to the public but whose access requires maintenance such as scrub clearance on private land. Most of their focus is West Cornwall and there is currently nobody monitoring the East Cornwall area for them. This could potentially involve some extra activity for us and assistance to gain access to private sites. PF said that several U3A people would be likely to volunteer for scrub clearance.

The meeting closed at 19:50 UTC.