Monday October 6, 2025 at 7:00 PM. Museum of Arts and Sciences
Come early to chat with the early birds. This month is about getting to know each other and showing off some of our finds. Bring the mineral of the month Sand (read it carefully because you may have something to bring) and the rock of the month Obsidian to the meeting. For the Maker’s challenge bring 15+ ornaments for the tree (see note on page 4 of our October Newsletter). Pam Mayer will be talking about her experience at William Holland and will be showing off some of her work. She is keeping Bill busy making cabochons.
Tuesday, September 2, 2025 at 7:00 PM. Museum of Arts and Sciences
Come early to chat with the early birds. This month is about getting to know each other and showing off some of our finds. Bring the mineral of the month (Rutile) and anything related to Dinosaurs for the fossil of the month to the meeting. For the Maker’s challenge bring something you made this summer. Charles Carter (from GMC) will be doing a zoom presentation on Gypsum for us.
June 3, 2024 at 7:00 PM. Museum of Arts and Sciences. Come early to chat with the early birds. Don’t forget this month is your favorite rock, gem, mineral or fossil. Be prepared to talk about it. We will also be having a rock swap, snacks (bring your favorite), and rock ID (no more than 5 please).
May 6, 2024 at 7:00 PM. Museum of Arts and Sciences Come early to chat with the early birds. Don’t forget the mineral of the month (corundum), fossil of the month (Bivalves- Mollusks) and anything rock related. Speaker for our May Meeting will be Virginia Kring. Virginia will be talking about her trip to Scotland.
Picnic and Auction April 20, 2024 Bill and Pam’s barn auction lots overview 11:00-11:30 lunch 11:30-12:30. Auction 12:30-2:00 (62 lots). The club provides BBQ. Bring a covered dish (or two) and a drink. Auction info was sent out on April 6th. Contact Jay for directions if you have never been to the barn.
April 1, 2024 at 7:00 PM: Come early to chat with the early birds. Don’t forget the mineral of the month (Phenakite), rock of the month (Granodiorite) and your wire wrapping. Speaker for our April Meeting will be Rodney Moore. Rodney will be talking about his mineral collecting expeditions to Namibia, Africa. Rodney was the original owner of the Jacksons Crossroad Amethyst Mine. He has traveled the country collecting, wrote articles for the Rock and Gem magazine, and has a store in McDonough, Georgia.
March 4, 2024 at 7:00 PM: Come early to chat with the early birds. Don’t forget the mineral of the month (Dioptase), fossil of the month (Sea urchins and sand dollars) and your Maker’s Challenge Rock Art . Speaker for our March Meeting will be Sam Satterfield, owner of Satterfield & Dempsey Jewelers in Warner Robins, Ga. Sam will bring some of his equipment he uses to identify diamonds from lab created diamonds and other stones that are not diamonds. Also to help identify different types of gemstones. Sam is G.I.A. Certified.
February 5, 2024 at 7PM: Join us for our first meeting of the new year! Come early to chat with the early birds. Our speaker is club member, Al Steffanini. Al will be speaking about his experience at William Holland and the class he took. Don’t forget your painted rock (rock art), mineral of the month (Silver) and rock of the month (Garnet Schist). It’s a new year with lots of great stuff going on with the club.
December 4, 2023 at 7PM: Annual Christmas Party. Bring your favorite dish for our annual covered dish dinner and social. Also bring a rock related wrapped Christmas gift for our gift exchange.
November 6, 2023 at 7:00 PM: Museum of Arts and Sciences Come join the early birds to chat. Greg Lewis will be talking with us about Native Plants. The Mineral of the Month is Aragonite and the Fossil of the Month is Crinoids.
October 2, 2023 at 7:00 PM: Museum of Arts and Sciences Come join the early birds to chat. Tina Perkins will be talking on Mica Mining in Georgia during WWII with information mainly about mines in Upson County. The Mineral of the Month is Alunite and the Rock of the Month is Skarn.
September 5, 2023 at 7:00 PM: Museum of Arts and Sciences Come join the early birds to chat. Mallory Stone will be talking on Plate Tectonics. The Mineral of the Month is Talc and the Fossils of the Month are Gastropods from the Mollusks.
June 5, 2023 at 7:00 PM: Our meeting speaker will be Ryan Roney. Ryan is the curator of rock, mineral, fossil, and meteorite collections at Tellus Science Museum in Cartersville, Georgia. He will speak to the club about what it takes to bring a triceratops to the Tellus Museum. Our mineral of the month is Halite and the rock of the month is Metaquartzite.
Annual Club Picnic: There has been a change in the location for the club picnic this year. The picnic will be at the Amerson River Park on Saturday, May 6, 2023, from 10:00 am to 1:00pm (this is an hour earlier than normal). The address for Amerson River Park is 2551 N. Pierce Dr. in Macon, GA. and you can find a map of the park at www.amerson.maconbibb.us/park-map We are at the Overlook Pavilion (the pavilion going to the overlook on the map). It is a covered pavilion so we should be ok if it rains. If you have a folding table please bring it for our auction items, there are not enough tables to put all the auction items on. Also please bring a chair just in case there is not enough seating. Then bring the regular stuff like a cover dish, your drinks, something for the auction, money to buy items, and your family. The club will supply barbeque and buns from Fincher’s along with plates and eating utensils. Come and have a great time with each other, we can talk rocks and everything else! If you cannot make the meetings now is your chance to hang out with your fellow club members. See you there!
It’s time for a Meeting on May 1, 2023 at 7:00 PM at the Museum of Arts at 7PM: Come join the early birds to chat. Bring your Rocks to be Identified and some to swap with other members. Bring your favorite gem, mineral or rock and be prepared to talk about your specimen. Your specimen is the rock, mineral, fossil, or gem of the month. Al Steffanini will be speaking about a camping trip to Richard B. Russell State Park and exploring the surrounding areas history, mining, and manufacturing of Elberton Granite. Al grew up in Warner Robins and worked in the metal fabrication, pipe fitting and pipe welding trades. Worked in the Texas and Louisiana oil fields in the early 80’s. Moving back to Georgia, he continued mechanical HVAC, piping and fabrication on the base as a contractor thru the 90’s. He married his wife Sherrill in 2002 and recently retired after working 26 years at GPI Macon Papermill. Al and Sherrill have camped and hiked in the Georgia mountains prospecting gold and collecting rocks for fun not knowing much about geology or fossil history. In 2018 they joined the Mid-Georgia Gem and Mineral Society to dig deeper in the learning and activities of the great hobby of rockhounding. Al and Sherrill have enjoyed the fellowship and meetings. Al has served as club secretary for the last 2+ years
March 6, 2023 at 7:00 PM: Museum of Arts and Sciences at 7PM: Come join the early birds to chat. Speaker for the night is Jay Batcha. He will be talking about his adventures in his classes. The mineral of the month is Sulfur and the rock of the month is Basalt. Be prepared to talk about your specimens.
February 6, 2023 at 7:00 PM. Museum of Arts and Sciences at 7 PM: Come join the early birds to chat. Don’t forget that dues are due; if not paid by February’s Meeting you will be dropped from the roll. Speaker for the night is Bill Mayer. He will be talking about his adventures in his classes. The mineral of the month is and the fossil of the month is anything from Morocco, but be prepared to talk about your specimens.
Happy Holidays Rockhounds December 5, 2022 at 7:00 PM:
Museum of Arts and Sciences Come join the early birds to chat. Don’t forget that dues are due and that if not paid by February’s Meeting you will be dropped from the roll. This meeting is the Christmas Party so bring your covered dish and a gift of $5-10 for each person in your group.
November 7, 2022 at 7:00 PM: Come join the early birds to chat. Don’t forget that dues are due and that if not paid by February’s Meeting you will be dropped from the roll. This month’s guest speaker is Tina Perkins. She will be speaking on Geological Features of the Southeast United States. Don’t forget to bring your mineral of the month – zircon and your rock of the month – pegmatite.
Our October 3, 2022 Speaker (at 7:00 PM): Come join the early birds to chat. This month’s guest speaker is Ryan Roney. Don’t forget to bring your tiger’s eye and your shark fossils (we love teeth).
Our June speaker: Dr. David Schwimmer. He was born in New York City, but despite the urban origin, he has always been interested in nature. He did his undergrad degree in geology at University of Wisconsin, Madison; Master’s degree in geology at University at Buffalo (SUNY); and PhD in paleontology at Stony Brook University (SUNY). His specialty then was trilobites, but he has always interested in vertebrates. He minored in Physical
Anthropology and Human Evolution. He has worked for Jacques-Yves Cousteau, and as a
geologist doing environmental impact assessments with an engineering firm. He resumed research on trilobites in northwest Georgia after arriving at Columbus College (now Columbus State University), but also began research on the local Cretaceous deposits in South Georgia. He has discovered a wealth of fossils in both the Cretaceous rocks and the Cambrian rocks in Georgia, most never before reported. He has written more than 40 journal articles, two academic books and a monograph, and 75 abstracts on the paleontology of the Eastern and Southeastern USA. (Dr. Schwimmer will share lots more with you at the meeting. His talk for the evening is summed up in the abstract below. -editor) Abstract: southwest Georgia and vicinity was a seacoast 75 to 85 million years ago, with habitats within 40 km. of Columbus including salt marshes, estuaries, and sheltered lagoons behind barrier islands, sea beaches, and marine bays. We have a good fossil record of the inhabitants of many of these environments from more than a dozen fossil sites. For reasons relating to fossil preservability, we have a much better record of larger, hard-boned vertebrates than of the lower trophic level animals. The top predators which are common fossils were giant crocodilians and medium-sized tyrannosaurs, followed by sea turtles, and large bony fish. Sharks and rays were very abundant, but typically were less than 3 m long and many were apparently scavengers. Surprisingly few vertebrate herbivores have been found aside from duckbilled dinosaurs, suggesting that predator-on-predator feeding was a common trophic behavior.
May 2, 2022 at 7PM: The May Meeting is a little different in that we will be having an open style meeting with Gem, Mineral, and Rock ID, Specimen swap (whatever you would like to swap be it mineral, gem, rock, or fossil), and drinks/ snacks along with some fun stuff for the young and the young at heart. So, bring a specimen that is your favorite from your collection to talk about, something to have identified by our resident experts (limit it to no more than 5-10 specimens), and something to swap.
April 4, 2022 at 7:00 PM: Better get hopping. It’s time for a meeting on April 4th at 7:00 PM. Come join the early birds to chat and don’t forget to bring a specimen for the Mineral of the Month, Opal and the fossil of the month, Brachiopods. Jay will be talking about Petrified Wood.
March 7, 2022 at 7:00 PM: Tuell Walters is our speaker of the month and he is talking about Mexican Agate. He said Jay Batcha put together the slide show of locations, history and the many types of Mexican Agates. Jay also had a large collection of Mexican Agates on display for members to view. Tuell said the agates came to be widely known and traded when Mexico constructed the Federal Highway 45 in the State of Chihuahua. He had maps showing 12 or more dig sites of many different types and that they were Government controlled. The Agate is formed from eruptive rock and lava flows in the form of Thunder egg Nodules, Geodes and Stalagmites/ Stalactites. Mexican Agate’s have spectacular colors on banding, tubes and eyes with Laguna (vivid colors and bands), Apache (clear or hollow with quartz or calcite), Luna (eyes like the craters of the moon), Moctezuma (pastels) and Crazy Lace (irregular and geometric patterns) being some of the popular types. A question- and-answer session followed the presentation.
February 7, 2022 at 7:00 PM: Come early and join the early birds to chat. The meeting this month is at 7:00 on the 7th of February. The speaker for the evening will be Aaron Warnock (a junior member). Aaron will be speaking on the planets. Don’t forget to bring a sample of the mineral of the month…lazulite and fossil of the month… Mammoth/ Bison fossils.
DECEMBER 2021: Annual Christmas Party
NOVEMBER 2021: Come early and join the early birds to chat. The meeting this month will not officially start until 7:30, but you can start arriving as early as 6:45PM on November 1, 2021. There will be no speaker, but we will be meeting in the
planetarium for a show and installation of officers; Jay Batcha- President, Bill Mayer-VP,
Susan Hargrove- Treasurer, and Al Steffanini – Secretary. Committees should also be ready to report for the year. We will also have news from the fair. We need a field trip person!
Don’t forget to bring a sample of the mineral of the month…quartz crystal (amethyst, smoky, citrine, rose, or milky will do) and rock of the month…slate.
OCTOBER 2021: Come early and join the early birds to chat. The meeting this month is on October 4, 2021 at 7:00 PM. This is election night. The speaker for the evening will be Clare Swinford from the Museum of Aviation. Clare will be speaking about the programs they offer through NASA and STEM grants. Don’t forget to bring a sample of the mineral of the month…Galena and the fossil of the month Belemnite.
SEPTEMBER 2021: The speaker for the evening will be Eddie Williams our own resident geologist. Don’t forget to bring a sample of the mineral of the month…calcite and the rock of the month…sandstone.
JULY 2021 and AUGUST 2021: No meetings in July and August
JUNE 2021: Come early and join the early birds to chat. The meeting this month is dedicated to your favorite Specimen, Rock, Gem, and Mineral ID, Rock Swapping, and fellowship. There will be snacks and drinks available. Don’t forget to bring a sample of the mineral and fossil of the month.
MAY 2021: The speaker for the evening will be Bill Witherspoon, co-author of
Roadside Geology of Georgia so bring your book for him to sign or bring money to buy a
book. He will be speaking about the fall line where the piedmont and the coastal plain comes together.
APRIL 2021: Ryan Roney will be speaking in April about his field trip to South America
MARCH 2021: Club Member Jay Batcha was our speaker tonight. He spoke on his 2017 road trip to the South Dakota Black Hills and Badlands Area attractions. He said the formations were some of the oldest in the world and formed by Volcanic Uplift. He mentioned Gold and Silver were commercially mined there and also Fossils were found in the Northwest side of the state. His stops included Dinosaur and Fossil Museums, School of Mine Technology, Homestead Gold Mine, Rock Shops, Crazy Horse Indian Memorial and National Parks including Mt. Rushmore. He collected at some sites and roadside cuts but found the most rocks in the parking lot of the Motel. He had many books and specimens on display along with a detailed slideshow.
FEBRUARY 2021: Club Member George Ruff was speaking tonight on Meteorite’s. He is a retired teacher and member of local astronomy club. There was a slide show, books and many specimens on display. He talked about documented hits and near misses on humans and the history of many famous finds. He explained the types and composites of meteors saying also that many sightings are man-made space junk falling to earth.
Mid Georgia Gem and Mineral Society 