Where do we meet?
Every month we have two face to face meetings. One meeting is held at each of the following locations:
Shenfield Parish Hall, Shenfield
Shenfield Parish Hall, is at 60 Hutton road in Shenfield CM15 8LB, about 400m from Shenfield railway station. We hire the main hall, which has space for around 50 people, plus several tables for displaying specimens, as well as refreshments.
On-site, there is parking for 12-15 cars, but in the nearby roads there is no shortage of on-street parking.
We meet every first Tuesday of the month at 7.30 for 8.00
Tollgate Hall, Stanway, Colchester
Tolgate Hall, is on Villa road, Stanway, Colchester CO3 0RH. We have the whole hall to ourselves, and once again, we have space for around 50 people plus tables for displaying specimens.
Parking is easy at Stanway, with space for at least 40 cars, just outside the front door of the hall
We meet ever third Thursday of the month at 7.30 for 8.00
What happens at a normal ERMS monthly meeting?
People start arriving from 7.30pm onwards. At around 8.00pm, we start the meeting proper with a few announcements concerning club matters, and following that, we usually listen to a presentation by an invited speaker. Sometimes we have a ‘Hands-on’ meeting where members have the chance to learn some of the techniques used by real geologists. We also look at and discuss specimens of rocks and fossils bought along by members of the society (Play and Display) We encourage everyone to wear their name badges, so that we can (hopefully!) avoid the embarrassment of forgeting each other’s names. We have a cup of tea or coffee and a jolly good natter with our friends
What happens at an ERMS monthly Zoom meeting?
First of all, everyone needs to have the Zoom client installed on their laptop/PC. It’s best to download this client prior to your first Zoom meeting from: https://zoom.us/support/download . Its free!
Shortly before the meeting, we each log into Zoom by clicking on the weblink that is emailed to everyone by our secretary. It’s really easy! There is a new link for each meeting. Most of us do this on our laptops/PCs from our own homes, but with a smartphone, you can access the Zoom meetings from anywhere. Members can enter the Zoom meeting at any time, and will not need to wait to be admitted. Everyone enters in the un-muted state, so that we can all have a chat before the presentation.
In order to allow this part of the meeting to run smoothly, members are requested to configure their Zoom client to display their own name*, so that everyone can see who is talking etc. This is a real help for newcomers.
We then view a presentation. Often, this is given by an external speaker who is presenting from a long way outside of Essex, but sometimes members of ERMS given talks on some of the basics of geology. These ‘ERMS basics’ are very popular, especiallly with those members who are new to geology. We record each presentation and upload it to our own YouTube channel (ERMSVIDEO). After the presentation we ask questions of the speaker, and otherwise have a good chinwag
* Changing the name that you display to other Zoom users is quite easy – just go to the bottom LH corner of your Zoom window and click on the name that you are currently presenting to all the other Zoom participants. Once you do this, a new window will pop up, listing several options. The option at the bottom is called ‘rename’. Click on this option and then type in your full name.