Conchology Section
Auckland Museum Institute

President's Report
Whoever would have thought that there are over 30,000 land snails throughout the world.
For our November meeting 21 members were mesmerized viewing Martin Walker's 600 slides of exquisite land snails. The trays of land snail shells for viewing were extremely interesting.
A huge thank you to Martin and his helpers for an outstanding evening. I have already dragged out my three large messy trays of land snails and now organized them into families and started some sort of order on these trays - you inspire me Martin!

This will be my last President's Report after three years in office. The job has made me even more passionate about shells.
Yes our next meeting is the AGM. We have most positions on the committee accounted for, so don't be turned away in fear of being forced into an executive role!
A real big thank you to the present committee for their support throughout the three years. You have been a great team to work with. A special thank you to Jan Munroe as Secretary, Neville Hudson as Treasurer, Peter Poortman as Website Convenor, and Tony and Jenny Enderby our Poirieria Editors.

Happy shelling and looking forward to seeing you at our final meeting for the year.
Heather Smith

NZ National Shell Show - 27, 28, 29 March 2009
Dates have now been confirmed as above for the shell show. Please mark these days in your diary now!

Public Viewing - the Snook Collection
The first public showing of Doug and Judith's private shell collection (possibly the biggest and best in New Zealand!) shall be held on Tuesday, 22nd to Saturday 26th January 2008 from 10am to 5pm (Saturday until 2pm) at the site of the new Papatoetoe Baptist Church, 9 Lambie Drive, Manukau City.
Free admission, but donations for the church redevelopment shall be gratefully accepted.
If you have never seen Doug and Judith's shells this is a great opportunity to attend. Or if you are in town and available to assist, Doug would appreciate support to answer those tricky questions that members of the public come up with!!

Annual Christmas Party
This will be held on Tuesday, 11 December 2007. The meeting shall commence at 7:30pm with the Annual General Meeting. This shall be followed by an outstanding one hour professionally edited DVD of Margaret and Heather's trip to the Antarctic Peninsula.
As usual we shall have our wonderful Christmas Supper, with our traditional cake being supplied by Rosa Tyson (thank you in advance Rosa!), so please bring along a plate of food to share.
And don't forget the Christmas Shell lucky dip - bring along a shell wrapped and labelled either WW (worldwide), NZ (New Zealand) or LS (landsnail)!
Shell trays for viewing include one or two trays of your most treasured or favourite shells - we could have a little competition and see which tray generates the most interest!
We look forward to seeing you at the Epsom Community Centre, 202 Gillies Avenue, Newmarket (in the larger room adjacent to the one we usually meet in).

Holiday Time
This is the final newsletter of the year - thank you all once again for your support and encouragement over 2007.
I wish you a very safe and happy Christmas and New Year holiday season with family and friends. I am fortunate enough to be able to holiday again at the Sandspit Caravan Park over January, and then time in the Coromandal - lots of fabulous beach locations to appease my shell fanaticism!
As our first meeting in the New Year is February, the next newsletter shall be published at the end of January 2008.
Jan Munroe

Book for Sale
"Shells of New Guinea and The Central Indo-Pacific" by Alan Hinton.
1975 edition published by Robert Brown and Jacaranda Press, Australia. 94 pages with full colour plates throughout. Price $18.00 posted or $15.00 collected.
Please contact Phil Andrews on (07) 345 9443 or philjoce@xtra.co.nz if interested.

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