Following on from a successful three-day event last year, we repeated exactly the same combination this year, a tour to the Natural History Museum on the Friday afternoon prior to the Sussex Mineral Show, which took place on in Hayward's Heath Saturday 14th November, and then our one-day mindat.org symposium on the 15th November, again in Hayward's Heath.

Friday 13th November - The Natural History Museum, London

After most of us met for lunch at a nearby pub, a group of 14 of us visited the Natural History Museum.



Before we started the official tours we had a quick look into the newer mineral galleries in what was the old 'Geological Museum' building.



We then returned to the main mineral galleries.









Divided into two groups people went behind the scenes to be given a tour by Mike Rumsey, head of collections.

Cosmonauts - The Science Museum

After the official program for the day finished a small number of us headed next door to the Science Museum to view their excellent exhibition on the Soviet space program. This once-in-a-lifetime exhibition brings together artifacts from the history of Soviet and Russian space research from the first experiments in the 1920/30s right through to the modern day.



There are some priceless exhibits on display, including the original Vostok 6 capsule that carried the first woman into space, Valentina Tereshkova and the Voshkod 1 capsule which was the first multi-manned spacecraft carrying three people into orbit in 1964.



But the most impressive exhibit is this - the never-used Soviet lunar lander. Unlike the American lander it only carried a single cosmonaut but otherwise worked in a very similar way. Problems with the N1 rocket designed for the Soviet moon missions meant the whole program was cancelled in the early 1970s and kept highly classified until the end of the USSR.



I'd like to thank the Science Museum press office for allowing me to take photographs for this report.

Saturday 14th November - Sussex Mineral Show, Haywards Heath

The annual Haywards Heath mineral show held at Clair Hall is an event I have written about for mindat.org many times in the past.







Richard Tayler had a new find of dolomite and calcite from the Lizard in Cornwall.







Steve Warren won the competitive case trophy this year, here he is being awarded the trophy by the mayor of Hayward's Heath. The competition judge Phil James is on the right.

Sunday 15th November - Mindat 2nd UK Symposium - Haywards Heath

On the following day we held our second UK symposium again in Haywards Heath. Although it is still a small event the quality of speakers was excellent.

Presentations were:

Jolyon Ralph - brief mindat.org update
Luis Martins - The hitchhikers guide to portuguese pegmatites
Ed Loye - "Winning" the REE - the criticality of mineralogy and host assemblage
Chris Mavris - An exceptional find of artinite from Parma, Italy
Roy Starkey - Arran in Focus (minerals of the Isle of Arran)
Amir Akhavan - Geochemistry in action - the volcanic island of Iōjima in Japan











Thank you for everyone who took part - it was a great event this year and we hope to do something similar next year too - more details once it is arranged!