Mendip Rocks! 2014 Festival of Geology Evaluation 2014 festival events were well attended and enjoyed widespread publicity in the local media. 24 events were staged, a substantial increase on the previous year of 17 events. The festival is a marvellous collaboration and a huge thanks to all who contributed:

Alan Gray, Banwell Bone Caves Heritage Group (voluntary), Butterfly Conservation, Elizabeth Devon, Earthlearningidea, AONB, Mendip Society, Chris Richard, North Council, National Trust, Natural , National Trust, Maple Leaf Orienteering, Plantlife, Quarry Faces Project, Radstock Museum, Somerset Earth Science Centre, Somerset Wildlife Trust, Wells and District Heritage Museum, and Westbury sub Mendip Quarry.

NEW FOR 2014:

Schools Engagement New to the festival was involving local schools. ‘Big Rock Day’, at Burrington Combe. The launch event involved classes from 4 local schools visiting Burrington Combe. 4 organisations kindly agreed to providing workshops –  Butterfly Conservation: planting butterfly friendly plants to take home after learning about butterfly attracting limestone flora,  Plantlife:lower plants survey on limestone woodland  Somerset Earth Science Centre – interactive activity, learning how the rocks and gorge of Burrington were created  Somerset Wildlife Trust – limestone grassland sensory activities It was also appreciated the enthusiasm and support shown by David Rowley, geology teacher at Wells Cathedral school who also attended and provided valuable volunteer assistanace from his 6 Geology A Level students. David also lead the Wells walk and has suggested an additional event for 2015.

New organisations and events New organisations to engage with festival this year included: Radstock Musuem, who in partnership with SESC delivered a Fossil Foray at Writhlington Batch Alan Gray with Melanie Patch, ran an event on Ochre Mining at Winford Redding Pits Discovering Black Down HLF project (Mendip Hills AONB) hosted 2 events, schools day and Burrington Rocks public festival launch event Steve Nice , one of Aggregate Industrys’ geologists kindly agreed to lead a tour of Torr works. Jen Harley, [email protected] 07871 100883 / 01934 732510 – ran Geocache taster sessions at the Burrington Rocks public festival launch event. Explore Ebbor Simon Clarke at Natural England, decided to extend the guided walk at Ebbor into a major festival day and is keen to repeat in future years.

Additional events not in programme Due to fully booking, some event providers were kind enough to put on extra events to meet demand. Banwell Bone Caves organised a second day to accommodate the request from a home educated school network SESC laid on 1 additional event : Twilight Quarry Tour Quarry Faces with Mendip AONB – staged an evenings illumination event – projections of archive images with audio presentation at Hill Quarry,

2014 FEEDBACK FROM EVENT PROVIDERS

Many of the participants were repeat visitors from last years festival who said how well they enjoyed last year and pleased with this years programme:

Vallis Vale Gems, 5 Oct – Elizabeth Devon: ‘Unfortunately only 15 made it to the meeting place by 10.50. We stood at the parking place from 10.30 while I gave an introduction and talked about the posters and iGeology. I think part of the problem was that town centre is blocked off on Sundays for the market. I would have been in trouble if I had not had the sat nav, as stupidly, I had left home without a map! However, you will be disappointed in that I collected only £21 from the day. People seem to have forgotten about the voluntary donation and I forgot to remind them.’

Wells Story in Stone 6 Oct – David Rowley, ‘I am happy to do the same again next year if you like. Around twenty people at my walk in Wells, some nice feedback at the end too. I also wondered about doing a more energetic/strenuous walk over Tor Hill to make a map of the anticline lasting about 2 hours.’

SESC: Twilight Quarry Tour 1 Oct – 10 booked , 7 turned up 2 Oct: 11 booked Brilliant; Very interesting tour; Very enjoyable; What a brilliant and interesting morning; Torr works 3 Oct – 10 people Steve Nice gave a very in depth talk and tour of Torr works including showing them geological maps. People did need to have a good geological knowledge and I think pretty much all the attendees did. They (and I) thoroughly enjoyed going all the way around the quarry rim, where we usually don’t go and getting to pour over rocks and take bits away. His wildlife knowledge was brilliant as well so he was telling us about what lives in and around Torr. He could have gone on much longer and people weren’t getting bored. Comments – Brilliant; Very interesting tour; Very enjoyable; What a brilliant and interesting morning; Tale of 2 quarries 14th Oct – 10 people The timetabling for this was too long, only needed 10-1pm so that people could go home for lunch Comments – brilliant informative visit; very interesting Tale of 2 quarries 16th Oct- 10 people Comments – Great; Very interesting and informative; Excellent; Mendip Rocks tour was extrememly informative and enjoyable, thanks; Fossil Foray 27th Oct - 200 people + Very popular but some issues: - Not enough parking space - Quite a long walk to batch. Some people had buggies which wasn’t’ suitable. Do we put accessibility info on flyers? Because the space available on the main poster/flyer is so small, could more info about each event go on the website? - Some people were late comers and there were no directions showing them where to go. - Somehow different start times were advertised in diff places. (not really our fault) - Batch is very overgrown, difficult to talk to a large number of people at once so had to do an intro talk to a few at a time as they arrived. Rocky Roadshow 29th Oct - 70 people Went really well, 5 quarry tours got booked up. Really great to have so many helpers – perhaps try to have more visitor led stuff. Comments – Really enjoyed ourselves, thank you: Shame about the mist, good time had though; Delightful, delightful,delightful!; Really enjoyed it!; Briliant

Further comments emailed:

Jim Hanwell, key Mendip Geologist and retired Wells Blue School geology teacher, ‘Thanks for all your info’ and hard work on behalf of “Mendip Rocks”. I fear that I am unable to participate in any meaningful way owing to ill health, but wish you all well “in the field”.

Great Elm and Hapsford Quarry detectives walk – Sun 12 Oct ‘Just to thank you for yesterday, we all had a really good time and learnt a lot.’ Fiona Boomer and group of 11 ramblers who blocked book onto walk

Explore Ebbor Gorge – Sun 26 oct I just wanted to contact you to say a massive thank you to you and everyone involved with both setting up and running yesterday’s Mendip Rocks Festival Explore Ebbor Event. We’ve received lots of really good feedback both at the event and today. We estimate we had over 250 people attend the day and the car park was full from 9.45 right till the end, which to be honest at times was a bit worrying! I’d like to give extra thanks to those of you who made very, very big drives to attend and especially to the night time security. Here are some of the comments: “I just wanted to thank everyone for a fantastic day yesterday. My son was fascinated by the walk and all the activities.” “Just a short note to say how excellent Sunday at Ebbor was. The guided walks were brilliant and the activities at 'base camp' very well thought through with the space available.” “Just wanted to say what a fantastic day myself and my family had yesterday at the Ebbor Gorge event. The event was well organised with lots of interesting things to do for families (digging for fossils, storytelling, the walks were the boys favourites). Thank you for spending your weekend making the event run so smoothly and such a success. Please pass on my thanks to others that also took part in the event”. Simon Clarke, Natural England.

2014 PROGRAMME

Sept/Oct

Big Rock Day at Burrington Coombe (classes from 4 local Fri 26 130 primary schools) inc 5 Sat 27 Burrington Rocks Family event at Burrington Combe 120 childr Tue 30 Banwell Bone Caves Treasure Trove SESC 46

Weds1 Twilight Quarry Tour SESC 12

inc 12 Weds1 extra Banwell Bone caves event 39 childr

Thurs2 extra Twlight Quarry Tour 12

Fri 3 Torr Works Tour SESC 12

Sat 4 Rock Faces projections at Nunney castle hill quarry 35

Sun 5 Vallis Vales Geological Gems Elizabeth Devon 22

Mon 6 Wells - A History in Stone David Rowley 20

Tues 7 Where the Mendips meets the Sea Chris Richards, NSC 12

Wd 8 Dry stone walling - Wavering Down AONB, NT 8

Sat 11 Wild Westbury Quarry Nigel Taylor 24

Sun 12 Hapsford - Great Elm Old Quarries walk -Quarry Faces 34

Tue 14 A tale of two quarries at Somerset Earth Science Centre 12

Wd 15 Explore Blagdon and Burrington Ham – AONB 11

Thur16 A tale of two quarries at Somerset Earth Science Centre 12

Sat 18 Springs and Slockers - Mendip society 35

Sun19 Ochre Mining at Winford Redding Pits Alan Gray 25

Westbury Quarry Conservation Task practical tasks AONB, Wd 22 8 NT Sun 26 Explore Ebbor Gorge Family Event 10 - 4 Nat England 250

Writhlington Batch - Fossil Foray 2 - 4 Radstock Mn 27 200 museum/SESC Wd 29 Rocky Roadshow at Somerset Earth Science Centre 75

Thr 30 Ebbor and Wander AONB 13

2014 TOTAL: 1167 (2013: 803, 2012: 753)

PUBLICITY Downloadable pdf. Paul Mitchell, Somerset Wildlife Trust graphic designer designed and produced a very eye catching pdf that could be downloaded from their website. This was also useful as a flyer and poster and could be emailed as part of email shots to various organisations. Mendip Times 1 page advertorial in September issue at £500 plus vat attracted good bookings for some. They then kindly covered the festival for following months from October to January finishing with pictures from the Ebbor Gorge event, Posters grouped by area and timing were produced and distributed at many venues and emailed to all parishes. Programme listings emailed to parish magazines. ‘E’ mail shots to many groups including U3As, other environmental organisations, SEEEN, Watch families, and schools. Dorset visitors came via their Dorset geology group mailing. David Rowley commented he had several emails with the pdf from his various e groups he is signed up to and said excellent way of spreading word. I asked event providers to forward the pdf programme to any of their email lists. Regular press releases were given good coverage by a number of local media including Midsomerset Guardian, Cheddar Valley Gazette, Wells Journal, and Somerset Standard. Monthlies such as ‘Whats on in Somerset’ included listings. Following targeting to parishes, it was good to see print outs of pdf on noticeboard at and offers of help from other parishes in putting up posters on boards, in newsletters and on websites. A5 flyers and A4 posters mailed out to parish boards and community venues. The project paid £500 to Mendip Times to display listings. Mark also provided additional editorial in both August and September issues with photographs from launch event in September issue. SWT also facebooked and tweeted events in addition to email shot targeting of volunteers and family members. Quarry Faces project also promoted MR on homepage with article. Nic Penn, AONB carried out interview with Radio Somerset. AONB took photos at their task days: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mendiphillsaonb Festival Banner used where possible including Burrington Combe, and Ebbor Gorge.

2015 IDEAS/SUGGESTIONS  Publicity – Central ‘e’ mailing list, gathering from all event providers their participants emails to create a mailing list for 2015 prog  Double page spread in Mendip Times – with expansion of festival – it has been a real shoe horning process to get festival details onto one page – could quarry companies be approached to sponsor festival publicity?  Earthcaches Promote the series of earthcaches set up by geologist and festival event provider, Elizabeth Devon–we would need an event to explain and help families do this. Mendip Hills 1 - tropical limestone - http://coord.info/GC4NGRA Mendip Hills 2 - desert sandstone http://coord.info/GC4NGRK Mendip Hills 3 - White Lias limestone - http://coord.info/GC4NGT3 Mendip Hills 4 - flash flood deposit - http://coord.info/GC4NGTM Elizabeth suggests, ‘They follow a walk from to Wells led by: Doug Robinson (retired from Bristol Uni). He is brilliant in the field and gives meticulous maps, directions and handouts.  Doug Robinson walk (get contact details from Elizabeth)  David Rowley offering Tor Hill anticline mapping walk  William Smith – bicentenary celebration William Smith's 1815 map – celebrate Mendip connection  Geology by bike? Geology on horse back?  [email protected] Sarah Robin – Australian based environmental artist – display of her work?  Community dance/art – could be part of wider Mendip Rocks framework – Sarah Jackson suggested could work well at Ebbor Gorge/Deer Leap, Mineries or Ubley Warren- all have car parking and good access. – contact SAW, Take Art? - [email protected] – 2014 Dorset AONB Valley of Stones landdance project http://www.landance.org.uk/homepage.html  Avoid planning events in Frome area on Independent Frome Sundays when there are town road closures that have a knock on event with nearby rural communities  Frome based geologist retiring from full time work in 2014 has offered to be involved in 2015: Simon Carpenter Tel: 01373 474086 Email: [email protected]

FESTIVAL COORDINATION FEE With new and additional events to promote and unanticipated time on lengthy copy checking with Mendip Times, the project coordination time Actual: 114hrs, £2900 including £50 travel, 2014 Budget was £2520

2014 EVENT PROVIDERS

Alan Gray [email protected]; 01761 452288 Banwell Bone Caves [email protected]; 01934 820516 Elizabeth Devon [email protected]; Quarry Faces [email protected]; 01373 836571 Natural England [email protected] 01458 860120 Maple Leaf Geocaching: [email protected] Jen Harley Mendip Hills AONB: Andy Mallender [email protected] 01761 462338 Discovering Black Down Project Officer [email protected] Nic Penn, Vol Coordinator [email protected] 01761 462 338 07770 646 161 Mendip Society : [email protected] [email protected] National Trust: [email protected] 07833436065 01934 844518 organises practical tasks with AONB Radstock Museum [email protected]; Somerset Earth Science Centre [email protected] [email protected] Somerset Wildlife Trust : [email protected] event workshop 01823 652415 [email protected] event diary [email protected] press [email protected] graphic designer Wells and District Museum (who manage the Wells Walk that David Rowley does) [email protected] 01749 673477 David Rowley [email protected]; 01749 834256 Chris Richards [email protected]; 01934 627478 Westbury sub Mendip Quarry [email protected] 01749 871289

OTHER CONTACTS:

Rockwatch (junior club of Geologists Association) [email protected] Susan Brown runs Rockwatch and outreach workshops: [email protected]

Thursday, 18 December 2014 Ruth Worsley, Festival Coordinator