De la Beche Club

De La Beche Club is a society of Imperial College London, the club was founded in 1914 to promote social academia and arouse curiosity in all things Geological. The society is named after Sir Henry Thomas De La Beche FRS, the founder of the Royal School of Mines and the British Geological Survey.

Membership

Membership is automatic for anybody studying an undergraduate earth science degree at Imperial College London, though membership is open for anybody, in particular anyone studying at Imperial College with an interest in Geology.

Fieldtrips

The De La Beche club regularly runs residential weekend trips, typically two a year. The trips are a social event but with geology at their heart they give students a chance to learn some geology whilst mixing with students from other years and getting to know lecturers outside of the classroom. The trips have been run to many places in Britain including the Lake District, Anglesey, the Isle of Wight and as far away as the Pyrenees.

Talks

The club runs talks from outside lecturers around once a month. The topics are wide ranging from 'Beer, Wine and Whisky, the role of Geology' to 'Meteorite Collection in Antarctica'. The talks are followed by drinks, food and once a year a Gooma Looma. The Gooma Looma is the name of traditional punch made once a year and drunk after a talk.

Annual Symposium

Once a year in the Summer Term the club organises a day of talks from a 6 leading lecturers. The day's talks have a theme and as well as refreshments throughout the day, in the evening the lecturers join the students in a dinner at a local restaurant. The theme to 2010's symposium was 'Controversy and Creativity: Groundbreaking Geoscience'.

References

http://union.ic.ac.uk/rsm/dlb.php retrieved 12/03/2011