Auckland Shell Club

Season's Greetings All
The Conchology Section has had a good year with our monthly meetings attended by 15 to 25 members and guests on average. Every meeting has a talk or presentation of some sort on the general subject of Molluscs. Our club's data projector is used in virtually every meeting. The meetings also feature a sales table, and exhibits of trays which frequently complement the speaker's subject. We were the hosts of a vey successful Two Day Australasian Shell Show in March 2009, with numerous attendees from around New Zealand, as well as those coming from Australia, England, and Brasil. In October we again held a Shell Auction, open to the public, but mostly serving as a useful means of redistributing shells between members past and present. Our library was expanded a little, and during the year we passed a motion changing our operating name to Auckland Shell Club, whilst retaining the sub-brand of Conchology Section of Auckland Museum Institute.

As President I would like to thank all those who have contributed over the year, in various ways, but especially our outgoing Secretary, Jan Munroe, who has done, once again, an excellent job in all respects, including putting together our monthly newsletters and helping with the Poirieria publication alongside Patricia Langford. She has completed four years as Secretary for which we are very grateful.
I myself am retiring as President at the AGM as other commitments have become overwhelming. I will continue to be involved however.
Thank you all for your support and attendances. I look forward to seeing you at the AGM in December.

Martin Walker

November Meeting Summary
The November meeting was attended by about 15 people and focussed on preparing shells. In particular, Mike Hart set up his ultrasonic cleaning device in the kitchen sink in our meeting room and proceeded to demonstrate its use. He had some Chlamys and Astraea with encrustation which came off as he passed the small probe over their surface. It is basically a dentist's plaque-removing device as I understand it. The downside to it is that it makes that tiny noise we hate so much when it works on our teeth! Various people tried it out and, also, Mike had brought along some examples of Rarotongan Murex, both before and after treatment, which showed its capability to remove encrustrations on fragile varices and processes where the standard dentist pick approach would be removing pieces of shell with heartbreaking regularity. There was an unfinished discussion over whether the club should perhaps buy one, intended for monthly hire out to it's members.
Then Martin described the evolution of his shell cabinet design, starting with the cabinet itself and working down to the tray inserts. He was trying to best resolve the combining of elegance with practicality and maximum storage and access. In the design he came up with all drawers are interchangeable (at least within each of the 3 standard depths) so drawers can be brought to the small cabinet near the computer desk and work table while working on them and then returned to the shell room and exchanged for others. The appearance is of timber but it is a laminated customwood which he believes will be free of acid vapour release (which can cause the so-called Bynes Disease). The tolerance is just 1mm vertically between drawers and there is no upstanding front edge facade, all of which makes for a dense utilisation of space in a small house. The insert trays are black cardboard, folded and glued and he demonstrated how they are made to any desired size. His tray sizes are based on multiples of the smallest tray unit which fits precisely 8 x 12 = 96 into his wooden drawers. The size of the smallest tray allows a dense array of shells, which was evident in the display example he showed. A question about fitting the label into such a small tray led him on to show the labels, which are all of a standard size which fits even the smallest tray, an example he picked out had 7 lines of text. The label content is generated from a Microsoft Access database and the software underlines family name, boldens species name etc. Colour was discussed and Martin uses black for the cardboard trays, and has recently changed over from white to cream for the label itself, which is on a card light enough to pass through a computer printer.

Annual Christmas Party
It's that time of year again - the Christmas party will be held on Tuesday, 8th December 2009.
The meeting shall commence at 7:30pm with the Annual General Meeting.
As usual we shall have our wonderful Christmas Supper, with our cake being supplied by Judith Snook (thank you in advance Judith!), 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)!
Please also bring along a shell tray for viewing of your most treasured or favourite shells.
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).

Newsletter
This is the final newsletter of the year, and in fact my final newsletter after four years in the role as Secretary. I would like to thank you all for your support and encouragement over this time. I have learned a lot about shells and the marine environment in general, as well as meeting and forming friendships with some fantastic people. Due to work and other voluntary commitments on my time something has to "give" and I feel after four years somebody else would enjoy this role.

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 2009 by my wonderful replacement!

Warm regards, Jan

Thank You
Thank you to Doug and Judith Snook for supplying our lucky door prize at each month's meeting - your generosity and thoughtfulness is appreciated.

Newsletter Mail-out
An enormous thank you to Joan Hetherington for kindly responding to our request for help and taking responsibility for photocopying and mailing out the newsletter on a monthly basis. Joan has done a fantastic job and shall be missed! Joan is standing down from this position at the end of the year, with her replacement to be determined at the AGM. If you feel that this would suit you, please contact Jan.

Hinea brasiliana
Have any members records of Hinea brasiliana, excluding the Kermadecs. Data should include location, date collected and whether alive or dead.
Contact Margaret Morley phone 576 8323 or email to : mmorley@aucklandmuseum.com

Annual General Meeting
Annual General Meeting will be held on 8th December 2009 at 7:30pm, 202 Gillies Avenue, Epsom.
President Martin Walker and Secretary Jan Munroe shall be stepping down from their roles. At this stage we have no expression of interest in the role of Club Secretary (which could be broken down into Club Secretary/Newsletter/Newsletter Mail-out roles) and would love to hear from anyone prior to the AGM if they think that this would suit them.

Previous Newsletters