The Southland Geological and Lapidary Club was re-formed recently, after an eight year recess. Its website is here and its Facebook Page is here. I joined in order to support it and with the hope of going along to a meeting when I am down south on a stone collecting trip. Club meetings, which are open to everyone, are at 7pm on the second Thursday of each month at the Seminar Room at First Presbyterian Church in Invercargill. This month’s meeting coincided with my current trip so I emailed the Secretary, Tina, to let her know I would be attending. She replied, asking if I would say a few words about myself and my TumbleStone Blog at the meeting. So on Thursday night I drove the 40 minutes from Riverton to Invercargill in the company of Chrissy, author of Tumble and Polish. We sometimes fossick together, especially on Gemstone Beach. See this Post about a Te Waewae Bay fossick we did. It was also Chrissy’s first Club meeting.
There were 11 of us who gathered on a cool Southland night. A number of people brought along recent finds or other interesting stones, including some ventifacts, as well as some nicely-polished stones. It was good to meet Tina, the person behind the Club’s emails to members. She explained to the group that this was going to be an informal session. I had scribbled down a page of notes to try to get my thoughts in order – it’s been a while since I have done any public speaking and I wasn’t sure how things would work out. I started by mentioning my links to Southland, despite the fact that I now live in Whanganui. I had actually read my About Me page on TumbleStoneTwo prior to the meeting, which helped me to organise a brief biography. I noted my time as a university lecturer, which explains how I approach many of my blog posts which are basically reporting on research I do about stones and tumble polishing. I explained why I started TumbleStone Blog – because I couldn’t initially find any New Zealand-based internet material on stone collecting and tumble polishing. I noted that I collect mainly very smooth beach stones – they’re easier to polish – and went through the main beaches I visit in the South Island. I described my approach to taking photos of stones and preparing images for the blog – using a digital camera, with the stones in bright sunshine, taking large images so they can be cropped to show a stone’s detail.
It was an informal session – people asked questions and made comments as we went along. I had brought along some of my polished stones from Kakanui, Slope Point and Gemstone Beach (see photos above). At times I picked out a stone and talked about it, such as the fossil coral I found on Gemstone Beach and the bryozoan fossil stones from Kakanui’s Seadown Beach. I also showed my recent Kakanui find of what could be an agatised fossil bone piece. Gemstone Beach’s hydrogrossular garnets were mentioned a couple of times, and I noted that my blog has a post on variations of that stone, based largely on “local knowledge” from a number of sources. I picked out a banded ignimbrite from Gemstone Beach and explained how it had come to be identified for me as this kind of rhyolite. I talked about my fascination with petrified wood and the large piece I found at Slope Point last year. Jack Geerlings was at the meeting and I was pleased to make his reacquaintance. I had met him briefly on Gemstone Beach in 2019 and later visited his amazing stone collection in Winton. He had shown me his Gemstone Beach sapphires which feature in one of my most-read blog posts, “The ‘Elusive Sapphire’ of Gemstone Beach”. After my talk, I was able to chat with a number of Club members, though didn’t manage to get around everyone. I hope everyone enjoyed the evening as much as I did.
Part 9 features three stones from relatively brief visits to three beaches. The first Post in this Series can be found here.
It was great having you visit and present to us John. We all really enjoyed your presentation. 🙂
Andrew TD
President SGLC
Thanks, Andrew. There was a good welcoming atmosphere there. Much appreciate you stepping up to take a leadership role in the revitalised club.
It was indeed an enjoyable night out! So interesting to see other people’s favs from their collections and to chat about their rockhounding experiences!
You are a great speaker – very knowledgeable, yet humble in manner with a calm, informative presentation style. I always learn something when I listen to you! (Thanks for the ride to town too!!)