Auckland Shell Club

The club first formed in 1931,{{cite web|url=https://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/local-news/east-bays-courier/8612794/Shells-are-a-passion |title=Shells are a passion |first=Karina |last=Abadia |date=1 May 2013 |website=Stuff |access-date=24 November 2022}} as the Conchology Section of the Auckland Institute and Museum.{{Cite journal| volume = 23| pages = 85–99| last1 = Beu| first1 = Alan| last2 = Marshall| first2 = Bruce| last3 = Ponder| first3 = Winston |author-link3=Winston Ponder| title = Richard Kenneth (‘Dick’) Dell, 1920–2002: obituary, bibliography and a list of his taxa| journal = Molluscan Research| date = 2003}} Sections are special interest groups or organisations housed within Auckland War Memorial Museum, and the Shell Club is the oldest.{{cite web|url=https://www.aucklandmuseum.com/your-museum/get-involved/membership/about-the-institute/sections |title=Sections |publisher=Auckland War Memorial Museum |access-date=24 November 2022}} It is one of only three shell clubs in New Zealand.{{cite web|url=http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/shellfish/page-8 |title=Shellfish - Shell collecting |first=Maggy |last=Wassilieff |website=Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand |date= 12 June 2006 |access-date=24 November 2022}}

The first facilitator of the club was Baden Powell. Powell held weekly after-school meetings and several Auckland schoolboys attended. Powell led field trips to Hauraki Gulf islands and Mon Desir Reef in Takapuna to search for molluscs, and conducted a harbour survey, dredging the bottom of Auckland Harbour; club members would sort these dredge samples and sand for tiny shells. Charles Fleming, Peter Bull, and Richard Dell were all members of the club as teenagers. Bull went onto become an ornithologist and ecologist, Dell Curator of Molluscs at the Dominion Museum, and Fleming became a palaeontologist studying palaeobiogeography and stratigraphy.{{cite journal|url=http://www.malsocaus.org/docs/newsletter/MSA127.pdf |title=Dr Bill Rudman and Dr Winston Ponder retire |date=December 2005 |journal=Australasian Shell News |first=Des |last=Beechey |volume=127 |publisher=Malacological Society of Australasia |access-date=24 November 2022}} Through the Shell Club, Charles Fleming was able to meet Robert Falla and the Museum's director Gilbert Archey, both important to his later scientific career. Powell took Fleming, then aged just 14, with him to Wanganui Museum to see the Pliocene type specimens in Henry Suter's collection, and in 1933 the teenage naturalist accompanied Powell's expedition to the Chatham Islands.{{Cite Q|Q115763336}}

The second facilitator of the club was Czech malacologist Walter Olivier Cernohorsky.

The club used to meet in a dedicated area of the Auckland War Memorial Museum's Malacology Department, where the club's library was also kept. The jubilee celebrations of the Conchology Club was held in October 1980, with a dinner at the Mon Desir Hotel and a field trip to Whangaparaoa Peninsula.{{Cite Q|Q115763336}}

From 1962 to 2014, the shell club published Poirieria, a journal available at the Biodiversity Heritage Library.{{cite web|url=https://blog.biodiversitylibrary.org/2015/10/from-scarborough-to-svjatoj-nos-bhls-latest-in-copyright-additions.html |title=From Scarborough to Svjatoj Nos: BHL’s latest in-copyright additions |first=Bianca |last=Crowley |date=22 October 2015 |website=Biodiversity Heritage Library |access-date=24 November 2022}}

The Auckland Shell Club takes part in the New Zealand Shell Show, an event that occurs every two years, alternatively held in Auckland and Wellington.{{cite news|url=https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/afternoons/audio/2553589/she-seeks-sea-shells |title=She seeks sea shells |website=Radio New Zealand |first1=Jesse |last1=Mulligan |author-link1=Jesse Mulligan |access-date=24 November 2022}}{{cite news|url=https://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/local-news/eastern-courier/8613125/Shells-on-show |title=Shells on show |first=Rose |last=Cawley |website=Stuff |date=1 May 2013 |access-date=24 November 2022}}

• Wilma M. Blom{{cite web|url=http://www.aucklandshellclub.net.nz/sep2013.htm |title=Newsletter - September 2013 |website=Auckland Shell Club |access-date=25 November 2022}}
• Albert Eugene Brookes{{cite Q|Q104815052}}
• Walter Olivier Cernohorsky{{cite Q|Q58628995}}
• Richard Dell
• Charles Fleming
• Bruce Hayward{{cite web|url=http://www.aucklandshellclub.net.nz/nov2003.htm |title=Newsletter - November 2003 |website=Auckland Shell Club |access-date=25 November 2022}}
• Margaret S. Morley{{Cite journal| volume = 3| issue = 3| pages = 23–27| last1 = Bozetti| first1 = L| last2 = Sargent| first2 = Dennis M| title = A new species of Euprotomus (Gastropoda: Strombidae) from New Zealand and the Kermadec Islands| journal = Visaya| date = 2011}}
• Winston Ponder
• Baden Powell
• Keith Arthur John Wise{{cite Q|Q58623386}}

{{Reflist}}

• [http://www.aucklandshellclub.net.nz/ Official website]
• [https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/117415 Poirieria at the Biodiversity Heritage Library]

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Category:Auckland War Memorial Museum

Category:Conchological societies

Category:Scientific organisations based in New Zealand

Category:Scientific organizations established in 1931

Category:1931 establishments in New Zealand

Category:Non-profit organisations based in New Zealand

Category:Learned societies of New Zealand

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