FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[James Catmur]

Roy Starkey is organising the first virtual symposium on the 28th of May. For technical reasons, it will be by invitation only. It seems like a great idea, to me. The event features a terrific line-up of speakers on a variety of topics: Rachel Walcott, Peter Davidson, Tom Cotterell, John Faithfull and Mike Rumsey.

How about some FMF symposia? We could make them Spanish/English if we wanted.

James

[Peter Lemkin]

[Bob Morgan]

Last weekend the Rochester Mineralogical Symposium was held virtually in an abbreviated form. It didn't replace doing it as a gathering, but it was quite a success. We had ' What's New' slide shows like we would have seen in person, a couple of talks, and student research reports. There was audience participation with questions and answers. Over a hundred participated, and we even got to see each other. When we tried to do group singing, that didn't work so well. A good time was had by all, and it was good to have time together.

As a preacher I've had group meetings with fellow pastors who've reported higher attendance at virtual worship than they had before Covid. Those who couldn't get to church could still attend.

I'm afraid I'll never be able to attend the British Mineralogical Symposium in person. If someone could get me an invitation I'll be there virtually..

[Jordi Fabre]

[Carl]

We had a great time putting on the eRMS (online Rochester Mineralogical Symposium) last Saturday. We topped out at 124 people, and with people coming and going, after five+ hours we were still over 120 live attendees. I would be glad to provide any insights and learnings that we had to anyone interested.

The "live" aspect, with so many of our RMS family on all at once, was far more inspiring and moving than we anticipated.

I would also be very interested in attending this virtual British Mineralogical Symposium. Is anyone aware of how to contact the organizers?

[James Catmur]

Peter

100 is the typical limit of such services unless you pay for a Premium service. Zoom limits to 100 unless you pay more. Search and you will see. I have no idea which platform is being used, but they all have limits.

So if we plan an FMF one we need to take this into account.

James

[James Catmur]

For another learned society I help run we used Clickmeeting. For up to 1000 participants I think the fee is about US$400/month

[John Cornish]

Hi Everyone,

Rosemary and I attended the eRMS, the electronic Rochester Mineralogical Symposium, and had a wonderful time watching and learning. We watched for quite some time and really enjoyed the entire experience!

If possible, we would also very much enjoy being a part of the 1st "Virtual" British Mineralogical Symposium. My email is... jcornishminerals@aol.com

Thank you for announcing this event!

We hope Everyone is staying safe and wish you all the very best,

John

[James Catmur]

John

Given the limits of zoom (100 people) I think it is already likely to be fully booked. Sorry

James

[Bob Morgan]

I went to the British Mineralogical Society web site and found a free and open to all conference of the Metamorphic Studies Group. It appears to be academic in nature with student posters and small presentations of research. It will be held on May 27th and 28th from 14:00 - 16:30 GMT with social time following. It has been well thought out for how to have participation ordered but lively.
Registration has already opened. Go to: forms.gle/coffrLAprqWYRd8R8.

This may not be the symposium of prior entries which looks more interesting to me, but, hey. I have the time and need to have my smarts exercised.

[James Catmur]

I attended this symposium, yesterday evening. It was a really interesting event with talks on Strontian Calcite; Bridgesite-(Ce) as an example of finding and naming new minerals; minerals named after Scottish people and places; trying to work out where quartz labelled 'Snowden' actually came from; minerals from the pegmatites of Mozambique; and Deeside treasures.

The talks were superb and very informative. So I really enjoyed the meeting. It lasted about 3 1/2 hours, but we could wander off to make coffee so it felt like it lasted less time.

Zoom worked fine, but was, sadly, limited to 100 attendees and may not be the best tool for a large meeting. For a virtual tour of my collection, I have used Zoom with great success (as long as there were only about 10 attendees and I turn off the deuteranopia colour correction on my screen). For most of my work I use Teams, and really like it. For large events of a learned society I help run we use Clickmeeting and it works well. This week's Oxford Geoheritage Virtual Conference is using Webinarjam and that seems to work incredibly well, with speakers and attendees for all over the world. So if you want to run something similar look into all the tools available.

Overall a fantastic evening, with some great talks that I really enjoyed. Cannot wait for the next one.

James