Conchology Section
Auckland Museum Institute

President's Report
What a fantastic meeting our last one was!
We all enjoyed hearing Steve’s challenges, frustrations and determination in his quest to research giant squid. Steve is an entertaining speaker and shared heaps of his experiences and information, which we all found extremely interesting.
We had a record attendance of 30 people!
Thank you to Margaret and Angela for bringing guests — the more guests we have attend our meetings the more likely we are to increase our membership!
Thank you to all those who brought along trays of shells. We always value sharing our shells. The only problem is that sometimes we want to take home somebody else’s tray!
Thank you again to everybody who contributed to a very successful meeting. Looking forward to seeing you all at our September meeting.
Happy shelling — Heather

September Meeting
Patricia Langford is going to be our speaker on Tuesday, 12th September. Patricia will speak to us on the history of "Man’s relationship with molluscs" and its significance to culture, religion, commerce, and art — including many interesting stories and facts. It is always great to have one of our members share something. Patricia has collected lots of information that we will all enjoy.

Please bring along some shells that have a story or some special relationship/use to man, ie edible, ceremonial, monetary, used for dying purposes or craft, decorative (wear some of those lovely shells) or just bring a tray of your favourite family of shells.

We look forward to seeing you on Tuesday, 12th September 2006 at Epsom Community Centre, 202 Gillies Avenue, Epsom. You are welcome to arrive from 7pm with the meeting commencing at 7:30pm.

Poirieria Magazine
Editors Tony and Jenny Enderby urgently require about 10 more pages including articles, stories, photos, pictures, etc before the Poirieria Journal can be prepared. At this stage there is still not enough information for an issue and we’d love to get an edition out this year. Send information to be included to Tony and Jenny (PO Box 139, Leigh) by the end of September 2006.

Norm Gardner
Norm Gardner’s passing on July 31st 2006 brings to a close a long time member of our Conchology Section at the Auckland Museum Institute.
A past President and committee member, who was involved in the very first Shell Show held in New Zealand at the North Shore Teachers Training College which took place in January 1978.
Norm’s passion was his shells, especially knowledgeable on worldwide land snails. He spent over 40 years on day per week in the Marine Department of the Auckland Museum greatly benefiting their scientific collection. He had newspaper articles with photographs published in the New Zealand Herald.
He is survived by his wife Noel and three sons. A cabinetmaker by trade meant that his worldwide collection was very well housed. He also made many beautiful wooden trophies that he donated to the Shell Club for rewarding the winners of our Shell Shows. We will miss his expertise and friendship.
With the passing of a number of older members the challenge is "who will take their place?"
Tribute prepared by Doug Snook

Post Codes
You will no doubt be aware that NZ Post have released updated post codes. These have been updated for each club member and shall appear on next month’s mailout. If further changes need to be made, please let me know. Thanks — Jan

Wellington Shell Show
Details concerning accommodation in Lower Hutt and transport has now been attached to the web site. Please contact Jan on 444 8460 if you require a hard copy of this.

In Short
Preliminary notice that the October meeting may be held at the Auckland Museum — further details in next month’s newsletter.

Excerpt from Wellington Shell Club’s newsletter "Bill Shortt tells us that the nautilus season has now finished and he found 22 good specimens this year" - Fantastic!
A previous newsletter reports on a newspaper cutting showing Bill with one of his nautilus shells which had the animal intact when found at Mahia.

Email from Chris Urquhart (nee Tapper) congratulates the Section on celebrating its 75th anniversary. Chris was a member of the section as a child in the late 1950s before migrating to Australia.

The name of "our" chair at the Auckland Museum has now been confirmed as "CONCHOLOGY SECT. AK MUSEUM INS".

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