RGSQ News

Dear Fellow Members, I hope you are all keeping safe and well as we cope with the COVID-19 virus. The pandemic is redefining our relationship with physical space: distance, proximity, spread, hot spots, and scale - in a word Geography – everyone is concerned with where. We are thinking about it on personal and local scales, navigating supermarket aisles and converting rooms into home offices. We are dealing with it at the regional scale, moving medical equipment from places with surplus to places in need. We listen to reports from epidemiologists functioning at national and global scales, as they work to understand how a virus could travel so far so fast and cause such devastation.

Australia does seem to be coping well compared to some other parts of the world. As at this writing, our daily number of new cases has decreased to the point where some states have had no new cases and the government is planning to ease some restrictions.

If there are any positive outcomes of this pandemic, one, surely, has to be the reduction in air pollution around the world. Indeed, this is observable from space.

Satellites are a key component of global efforts to tackle air pollution. Data from many major cities show a strong correlation between reduced levels of air pollutants and actions taken to flatten the curve of the COVID-19 pandemic. Air pollution around the world has dropped as countries scale back economic activity and drastically reduce travel by road and air. An important and encouraging lesson is that when we remove the sources of pollution, unhealthy air clears up almost overnight. As far as the environment and our health is concerned, this is an excellent thing. However, the lockdown in economic activity cannot continue and scientists warn that, unfortunately, the reprieve in air quality will only be short term. A surge in emissions as economies recover is likely to leave the environment again worse off. Achieving the inevitable transition to a low-carbon-low-polluting future is a major challenge. A weak global economy may threaten investment in renewable energy sources and associated long-term jobs, particularly given the present availability of cheap oil and lobbying to develop more new coal mines for profits in the short-term.

“Could governments and economies view this clean-air episode as an opportunity to begin to re-align policies towards a sustainable future?”

Our cities may again breathe clean air hopefully sooner rather than later.

References:

Melissa Lunden and Meghan Thurlow The stunning impact of COVID-19 social distancing on air pollution (March 31, 2020) https://www.greenbiz.com/article/stunning-impact-covid-19-social-distancing-air-pollution

New York Post China’s skies are briefly clearer while factories stay shut March 3, 2020

https://nypost.com/2020/03/03/chinas-skies-are-briefly-clearer-while-factories-stay-shut/

Gabriel da Silva, COVID-19 drop in pollution to be short-lived  Engineering & Technology 30 March 2020 https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/covid-19-drop-in-pollution-to-be-short-lived

RGSQ President Dr. Iraphne Childs

By Dr Emma Kennedy

The Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is currently experiencing its most widespread coral bleaching (a physiological response to heat stress) to date. In January, NOAA satellites detected warmer-than-usual sea surface temperatures, which continued through to March, with February breaking a record as the warmest since records began in 1900. With heat stress accumulating much faster than scientists originally anticipated, survey teams were scrambled from across regions and institutions to assess the impact on corals across the world famous Marine Park’s massive 344,400 sq kmextent. The 2020 mass coral bleaching marks the third major bleaching event in just five years. 

Aerial surveys conducted by Prof Terry Hughes from the ARC Centre of Excellence and the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority’s Dr James Kerry over a period of 9 days in late March gave scientists the best overview of the damage. Flying a light aircraft 150 m above the ocean, the team’s flight path crisscrossed 1036 of the Great Barrier Reefs approx. 2900 reefs, giving researchers an opportunity to eyeball each reef and assign a score (either <1%, 1-10%, 10-30%, 30-60% or >60%) based on the estimated proportion of corals bleached white. Survey scores released in early April matched the footprint of the heat stress, which was concentrated on inshore reefs. While outer reefs and much of the northern area appeared to escape this bleaching, and some central reef areas – including the tourist areas of Cairns and Port Douglas – were spared, south of Cairns the damage was extensive. A quarter of all reefs surveyed were assigned a “severe bleaching” category (where >60% corals affected), and these reefs were found in every sector of the GBR for the first time. This makes the bleaching footprint the most widespread ever reported for the Reef, and just second to the 2016 GBR bleaching in terms of severity. Just 40% of reefs fell into the “no bleaching” >1% bleaching category. Dive teams were deployed to collect underwater field data to help verify aerial scores, although for many researchers – including my own Remote Sensing Research Centrelab trying to get to our reef sites at one of the worst affected areas in the Keppel Islands – COVID-19 restrictions limited our ability to access field sites.

Of particular concern for scientists was the impact on the southern reefs, which had largely escaped the 2016 and 2017 mass bleaching events, and had been thriving despite crown-of-thorns outbreaks in the Swains reefs. Catastrophic declines in the number and recruitment of corals followed the 2016 and 2017 events. Although some recovery has been observed, it is not known how this year’s bleaching has affected new coral recruits. The time between these major disturbances generally does not allow coral assemblages to recover. This kind of heatwave recurrence was not predicted until later into the 2030s. Part of the reason that little bleaching was documented in the Far Northern Reef areas is that most of the reefs there are extremely damaged, making the small number of living corals harder to observe from above, a phenomenon scientists have dubbed “ecological memory”, or “dead reefs can’t bleach”. 

 Particularly concerning for scientists was the impact on the southern reefs, which had escaped recent mass bleachings in 2016 and 2017, and had been thriving despite crown-of-thorns outbreaks in the Swains. UQ’s remote sensing research group surveyed the stunning Hardline Reefs last year as part of their project to map the Great Barrier Reef. Credit: Emma Kennedy

While events on the Great Barrier Reef often focus media attention, the bleaching was not just restricted to the Park: in February our dive team returned from the remote Coral Sea after surveying kilometres of corals. Coral bleaching does not always equate to mortality. Generally, warmer-than-normal temperatures (defined by scientists as “Degree Heating Weeks” DHWs – the period of time water temperature remains >1 degree C above the maximum monthly mean for that that area) that exceed 6 DHWs are associated with significant coral loss. Accumulated heat stress was not as high in 2020 as in 2016. As we transition into winter, temperatures are starting to cool and the stress is beginning to alleviate. Only with time will scientists be able to understand the true long-term impacts of this summer’s heatwave. 

With 64,000 Australian jobs reliant on the Reef, the economic impacts of bleaching could be felt for years to come. The GBR brings in an estimated $6.4 billion to the economy. Dive Instructor Tanya Murphy described it as “Gut wrenching - unless we cut down on carbon pollution urgently, tens of thousands of tourism workers like me who are currently on jobseeker payments due to coronavirus are going to be out of work permanently”. Meanwhile the Morrison Government has announced a $100 million commitment (of the $443 million given to the controversial Great Barrier Reef Foundation) towards a Reef Restoration and Adaptation Program (RRAP) to explore technological solutions from cloud brightening to larval reseeding of damaged areas. 

Bleaching data for the 2016 and 2017 global mass-bleaching event showed damage concentrated north of Cairns, and in the central areas from Cairns to Townsville respectively. Southern reefs had largely escaped recent warming, until this summer. Credit: Terry Hughes, ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University

While these innovations are exciting, without a concerted effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions both at home and abroad, the future of the reef seems bleak. Corals are extremely vulnerable to elevated ocean temperatures. The 2019 IPCC report warned that limiting global warming to <1.5°C was critical to ensure the survival of functioning reef systems that support over a billion people by providing food, coastal protection and jobs globally. In an online discussion on the scientific findings of the Great Barrier Reef surveys live-streamed to over 300 scientists and reef managers, James Cook University’s Prof Morgan Pratchett, involved in coordinating the bleaching response, said “we need to act to reduce the severity of bleaching events … the only way to do that is to reduce carbon dioxide emissions”

“Our planet’s summer from hell is not over by any means”

As Australia’s long and desperate summer finally draws to an end, seasons shift and the heatwave migrates into the Indian Ocean, researchers in the Maldives are already noting the first signs of bleaching on their reefs. As we begin to survey the aftermath, scientists across the planet are now trying to find a way to check on their local reefs in this difficult time.

Heat stress data from the Bureau of Meteorology shows “Degree Heating Days” an accumulation of above-average warm days (climatology taken from 1993-2003) over the Australian summer (1^stDec to 31^stMarch), derived from IMOS L3S AVHRR sea surface temperature (SST) products. Heat stress accumulated on southern inshore reefs this summer. Credit: BOM

The Great Barrier Reef, indicating location of surveyed reefs that were most severely affected (more than 60% corals estimated to be bleaching red circles) and those that were least impacted (<1% corals bleaching, green circles) by the heatwave. In total, 1036 reefs were surveyed. Credit: Terry Hughes, ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University

Bleaching corals in the Keppel Islands. The Keppel Islands near Rockhampton were one of the worst affected areas, but because of COVID-19 restrictions, University of Queensland scientists were not able to access their reef sites to assess bleaching impact. Credit: Oliver Lanyon

by Iraphne Childs

Geography in Australian universities

As RGSQ President, I’m fortunate to be able to represent the RGSQ at the meetings of the Australian Academy of Sciences National Committee for Geographical Sciences (NCGS). During the most recent NCGS teleconference, on 20 February, it was decided to send a letter to all Australian University Vice-Chancellors entitled “Responding to Australia’s current crises: Geography’s place” - emphasising the contributions that Geography makes in tackling the challenges of our environment and society – a timely reminder following the weather events of the 2019-2020 summer and the impact of the coronavirus. Universities play a critical role in educating the next generation of professional geographers and in improving the geographical literacy of Australian citizens. We encourage universities to support more Geographers and Geography courses! The VCs have been provided with copies of Geography: Shaping Australia’s Future, published by the Australian Academy of Science in late 2018. Prepared by the National Committee for Geographical Sciences the report presents the state of play of Geography as a discipline in Australia and provides a unified vision for Australian geography over the next decade.

Geography and the spread of COVID-19:
In the wider world, of course, the news is full of depressing statistics and daily updates about COVID-19. Predictions of the further course of the epidemic are decisive in order to deploy targeted disease control measures. Those of you familiar with Swedish Geographer Torsten Hägerstrand’s early work on diffusion theory will recognise that this was the basis for many early epidemiological studies by medical geographers mapping the spatial-temporal diffusion of diseases.

As was presented by Dr. Thomas Sigler at our March lecture evening, the evolving field of network-based modelling is beneficial for an accurate forecast of epidemic outbreaks e.g. the Ebola outbreaks in West Africa. Studies are already underway using network analysis to model the spread of the COVID-19 virus in Hubei Province, China. The network used is composed of the cities in Hubei and their interactions (e.g. traffic flow).

I hope all RGSQ members will stay safe and avoid the virus over the weeks and months ahead.

Source:
WHO Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) Situation Report –50. 

References:
Geography: Shaping Australia’s Future 

Prasse, B. et.al (2020) Network Prediction of the 2019-CoV Epidemic Outbreak in the Chinese Province Hubei Physics and Society 12 February 

Contributed by
Dr. Iraphne Childs, President RGSQ 

Dear Members,

I write to you on behalf of the Society’s Council, which held a meeting on 17th March. We considered our responsibilities to our members in the current public health crisis with the COVID-19 virus. While the situation is constantly changing, and we will endeavour to keep you up to date, we have made the following unanimous decisions:

We trust you will appreciate the duty of care which Council feels obliged to exercise in the current circumstances, to a membership which largely falls into the highest risk category. It is our desire to limit any risks to you, by ceasing all non-essential activities. We will continue to communicate with you during this period and look forward to getting back to normal as soon as possible. As President, I wish that you all stay well and encourage you to monitor and heed the changing medical and Government advice.

Kind regards,
Dr Iraphne Childs, President RGSQ

Dear Fellow Members,

Our “Welcome night” on 4th February, the first members’ meeting of 2020, was well-attended and very successful. Thanks to all those members who prepared and presented updates and activities for 2020 from the various committees and special interest groups. It’s clear we have a great progam for the year ahead. I hope you can come along to the lectures and participate in some of the interesting activites and treks – you can find the whole year’s program on the RGSQ website. During the Welcome night I was particularly pleased to catch up with some members from the Sunshine Coast. We are looking at options for presenting some lectures at the University of the Sunshine Coast again and/or making lecture presentations available online from RGSQ Spring Hill.

A big thank you to all the volunteers who have helped with the first AGC mailout on 5-7 February. We couldn’t run the AGC without you!

Have you ever met a Chartered Geographer ?

This title is achieved through an accreditation program based with the Royal Geographical Society-Institute of British Geographers (RGS-IBG) in the UK. Established in 2002, a Chartered Geographer is the internationally recognised accreditation for people who apply geographical skills, knowledge and understanding and are committed to maintaining their expertise through continuing professional development. “The Chartered Geographer accreditation gives confidence to employers, customers and decision makers that the professionals who attain this status are practicing at a high level within their sector, can advise on innovative solutions and are active contributors to a vibrant international geographical community.” Andy Murdock - Chair of Chartered Geographer Final Assessors Committee. Chartered Geographers’ knowledge and skills may be in the physical, environmental, resource management, social sciences or in the humanities, and across many areas of work: in education, teaching and training, in research, in the commercial world, including consultancy, in the public sector, charitable and not-for-profit organisations and in the planning professions. Chartered Geographers must be Fellows of the RGS-IBG. Eligibility has some fairly rigorous standards and involves an annual fee. There is a Framework of Competencies and a Code of Conduct designed to help Chartered Geographers to demonstrate their expertise and experience, no matter what their career stage.

It is an interesting concept that the Institute of Australian Geographers IAG) some time ago had considered implementing for Australian Geographers but as yet has not implemented. I would expect that such accreditation should make it possible for the work and expert advice of geographers to be more widely recognised, cited and referenced in policy and strategic documents. For example, in January 2018 the UK Government’s Science and Engineering (GSE) profession announced the appointment of a new pan-government Head of Geography, David Wood, a Senior Geospatial Data Analyst and Economic Geographer. No doubt the availability and status of Chartered Geographer assisted in championing the breadth of work undertaken by geographers in the UK, recognising their contribution to analysis, delivery and policy formulation across government. Currently there are at least 12 Australian Geographers who hold the RGS-IBG Chartered Geographer accreditation. The program may be of interest and worth considering in future especially for some of our Young Geographers.

Iraphne Childs, President

References:
https://www.rgs.org/professionals/chartered-geographer/
https://www.rgs.org/professionals/chartered-geographer/eligibility
https://www.rgs.org/professionals/chartered-geographer/application/

The Royal Geographical Society of Queensland (RGSQ) and the Ken Sutton Trust

invite written submissions from an Australian Geographer for the Ken Sutton Trust Memorial Award.

This award will be promoted through an endowed public lecture in Brisbane in 2020, preferably in early October, and a publication as a pinnacle activity for RGSQ.

Selection Criteria:

For full selection criteria download Application Form
Submission deadline: 30 April 2020
Email submission to: info@rgsq.org.au
Inquiries to: info@rgsq.org.au or (07) 3368 2066
The winner will be notified by email/phone.

The awardee will receive support for: publication of a paper, costs associated with presenting in Brisbane and $500 prize money.

Download Flyer

Find out more about Ken Sutton Trust and Ken Sutton.

Dear Fellow Members, welcome to 2020.

The disastrous start to the year with the devastating bushfires has affected people in so many regions, our ecosystems, wildlife and local economies. I do hope that all RGSQ members and their families have stayed safe.

As I have a professional interest in disaster management, I would like to share one aspect of the bushfire response. It is now widely recognised that resource capacity for dealing with the increasing scale and severity of natural disasters within individual countries across the Asia-Pacific necessitates greater international cooperation. In terms of fighting large-scale bushfires, we have already seen many examples of international cooperation between Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the USA.

Australia and New Zealand have long-standing reciprocal first-response exchange arrangements of disaster and emergency personnel. This has included Australian Search and Rescue personnel deployed to the 2011 Christchurch earthquake and New Zealand fire fighters to the current 2019-2020 bushfires in Australia. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern pledged bushfire-fighting support in November 2019 and we have seen on-going contingents of NZ fire-fighters arriving from across the Tasman throughout this summer. Highlighting the scale of the catastrophic bushfires was the unwelcome gift from Australia of the smoke and ash to New Zealand which has "caramelised" the normally pristine white Tasman Glacier in early January some 3000km away from the actual burn!

Satellite imagery showing the south-east drift of smoke from Australia to New Zealand.

Source: Bureau of Meteorology 1 Jan at 10:40am.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-01/smoke-shrouds-australia-as-nsw-bushfires-continue/11835734

For the past two decades, Australia, Canada and the US have exchanged personnel and equipment during major fires in their respective countries. In July 2018, around 200 Australian firefighters were deployed to the United States to help battle bushfires across the north-west of the nation. In January this year, for the first time, the NSW Rural Fire Service called upon the US for a reciprocal fire-fighting response. Canadian firefighters have left freezing conditions in their homeland to help fight Australian bushfires this summer, giving up Christmas with their families to do so. Fortunately, the Canadian and US personnel operate on similar systems to those in Australia, so the teams add value to our firefighting operations very quickly.

A major emerging issue for fire authorities in terms of international cooperation is that there are no longer very distinctive “fire seasons” in different parts of the globe. Climatic conditions are producing seasonal fire weather and conflagrations that overlap between the northern and southern hemispheres. Longer fire seasons threaten to disrupt the sharing of vital personnel and equipment. Australia could previously rely on hiring specialist water-bombing aircraft and equipment from north America during our summers. Those exchange arrangements could be strained as the combination of climate change, more droughts, high temperatures and winds and lengthening fire seasons produce more severe blazes. Critical resources may be needed at the same time in both Australia and California, for example. The lengthening of fire seasons has also meant there have been shorter and fewer safe “windows” within which to carry out controlled burning for fuel-reduction – the limitations on this being the actual drought and weather, not any restrictions placed on fuel-reduction according to fire authorities (NSW Rural Fire Commissioner, Shane Fitzsimmons, Jan 8th 2020).

I look forward to seeing you at the RGSQ Welcome night on 4th February. We will be presenting activities for the Society’s year ahead and offering a delicious welcome supper. We will also have a raffle, so bring along your small change.

Iraphne Childs, President

References:
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6485972/ardern-offers-nz-support-to-fight-fires/?cs=14232
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-07-31/us-california-wildfires-australian-assistance/10052864
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/canadian-firefighters-volunteer-to-help-battle-australian-bushfires-over-christmas
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/it-smells-like-it-s-time-to-go-to-work-american-firefighters-arrive-in-sydney-20191208-p53hxt.html
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/nov/16/longer-fire-seasons-threaten-to-disrupt-us-australia-firefighting-cooperation
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jan/08/hazard-reduction-is-not-a-panacea-for-bushfire-risk-rfs-boss-says

Dear Fellow Members

A CLG at last! The Society year is ending with very welcome news – on 30th October we received confirmation that, taking effect from 25th October, our registration as a Company Limited by Guarantee had been approved by ASIC. This is the culmination of a 3-year challenging process. On behalf of all members, our congratulations and thanks to Roger Grimley, Lilia Darii and Chris Spriggs for their efforts in seeing this through. Our lawyer, Heather Beckingsale, has provided legal advice pro bono throughout the process for which we are most grateful. So the RGSQ Council now constitutes a Board of Directors (although we still retain the nomenclature “Council” and “Councillors”).

UQ Students present their findings: On 17th October the UQ post-graduate students who had been researching our membership as a project for their degree, presented their report to RGSQ. A copy is available to members in the office. 100 members responded to the online survey part of the exercise. Key findings include:

• Over half of members responding are over 70 years of age;
• 43% have been members for more than 10 years;
• 80% intend to renew their membership;
• 75% now prefer to receive their Bulletin via email;
• RGSQ website was the most favoured channel for information on day trips and treks;
• Based on analysis of ABS demographic and economic data, the suburbs most suitable for targeting potential new members were The Gap, Coorparoo, New Farm, Ashgrove, Clayfield, Bridgeman Downs, Carindale and Indooroopilly

Engaging with the UQ Business School has been a worthwhile exercise, incurring no cost to RGSQ and the UQ staff involved have been very good to work with. We hope to continue this association in the future.

A visit to the Museum, Lands, Mapping & Surveying: On 31st October I represented RGSQ at the opening in 317 Edward Street of the new Museum of Lands, Mapping and Surveying (Dept. of Natural Resources, Mines and Energy). This occasion also commemorated the 200th anniversary of the birth of Queensland’s first Surveyor General, A.C. Gregory. Links have been made for RGSQ Map group to visit the Museum which houses many items of interest used by surveyors and cartographers in bygone eras. For example, in 1919 the Harvard Observatory in Peru expressed interest in shifting its instruments to Australia and Queensland was chosen for the relocation. In 1921 the Qld Surveyor General conducted tests for the “clarity of the atmosphere” at various sites on the Darling Downs. The 4-inch Grubb Astronomical Telescope now in the museum was used for this. Although the tests were satisfactory, the transfer of the observatory to Queensland never eventuated.

The Museum also has a bust of our foundation president, Augustus Charles Gregory. Bill Kitson, who is known to many members, related the story of its acquisition. For many years the bust was held in the Gregory Masonic Lodge, Cairns. In 2018 through the efforts of John Cavill-Jones and others, the bust was entrusted to David Kirchner who arranged for the transfer of the Gregory bust to the Museum of Lands, Mapping and Surveying in Brisbane where it is now on display.

The RGSQ Christmas Party: I look forward to seeing you at our Christmas party on December 3rd. There will be a couple of special awards and a quiz to test your geographical knowledge ! This year we will also have a raffle (tickets $2 or 3 for $5) so bring along your spare coins. On behalf of Council and Staff I extend my best wishes to all members for a happy and safe Christmas-New Year season.

Iraphne Childs, President

Henry Tryon (b. England 1856) worked as curator at the Queensland Museum from 1883 and then joined the Queensland Department of Agriculture in 1894 where he was appointed the state’s first Government Entomologist and Plant Pathologist. Tryon was the founding Secretary of the Royal Society of Queensland and a member of RGSQ.

Tryon made several major scientific contributions to agriculture in Queensland. He was the first scientist to report upon the diseases of economic crops in Queensland (1889), warning farmers and politicians against the uncontrolled importation of plant material into Queensland. During the early 1890s, he drafted the regulations which became the Diseases in Plants Act of 1896. This legislation effectively led to the first plant-quarantine service in Queensland.

Tryon’s greatest contribution, however, involved his association with the Queensland sugar industry which suffered from reduced yields in the 1890s due to gumming disease, a very nasty bacterial infection (not discovered until 1926-1927) that destroyed the centre of stalks of cane, thereby reducing sugar content. During 1893 and 1896, Tryon was a member of expeditions to different parts of British New Guinea. Here he was associated with collecting nearly 100 wild varieties of sugar cane then unknown to European science, but his vigilance ensured that no diseased sugar cane material or foreign insects were imported into Queensland. Subsequently, two of these cane varieties – Badila and Goru – were found to be very sucrose-rich and displayed considerable natural resistance to gumming disease. Both varieties were widely grown in Queensland after 1906. 

The Tryon collection held in the Museum library with RGSQ’s 1874 diary, 2nd from the left.

Tryon also identified methods to combat insect pests troubling the Queensland sugar industry, especially the cane grub (or larvae of the numerous cane beetles in Queensland). In an era before insecticides, Tryon advised Queensland’s canegrowers to collect cane grubs and cane beetles by hand – children earned pocket money doing this task – destroy the beetles’ feeding trees, and fumigate the soil with carbon bisulphide which killed the cane grubs (all methods used by the state’s canegrowers between 1900 and 1940). In the mid-1900s, Tryon also identified that Metarhizium aninsopliae, a fungal pathogen, was fatal to cane grubs, but, unexplainedly, he did not pursue this finding. In 1991, his research was re-examined by CSIRO scientists trying to find a new way to kill cane grubs, following the Commonwealth government’s ban on the insecticide BHC which was widely used by Queensland’s cane growers.

In 2017 one of his diaries (1874) was found in the storeroom at the Milton premises. How it got there is unknown. A search revealed that the Museum had another of his diaries (1868) amongst its Tryon Collection. Steps were then taken to transfer the diary to the Museum but delayed during RGSQ’s move to Spring Hill. The transfer was accomplished on the 4 October with the diary joining the Tryon Collection at the Museum (see the photos).

Words by Peter Lloyd and Peter Griggs

The work continues
The Tryon Diary story is just a small part of an on-going audit and assessment of the Society’s numerous artefacts and memorabilia begun by Bernard Fitzpatrick in 2015. This work included the 2017 Assessment of Significance report by Judith McKay and Bill Kitson and a detailed listing and photographing of artefacts by UQ student volunteers before the move to Fortescue Street.

The assessment and placement are now continuing and if anyone is interested in helping please contact the office.

Photos: I Childs

Handover – Iraphne Childs with Shannon Robinson, Co-ordinator, Collections & Research Resource Centre (Library), Qld Museum.

Dear Members,

What’s happening on RGSQ Council?

The first regular meeting after the AGM of our new Council was held on Tuesday 15th October. The agenda, as always after an AGM, was a full one with many reports and matters to discuss. Here are some examples which may be of interest to members.

The Society’s Committees for the year going forward was confirmed at Council as follows:

 Collections: P Griggs (Chair) J Graham, P Lloyd, P Nunan

 Finance: C Spriggs (Chair), J Nowill, I Childs, I Harding, L Darii,

 Honours: D Wadley (Chair), J Holmes, L Isdale, L Scanlan, D Cook

 Ken Sutton Selection panel I Childs (Chair), M McIvor, A Powell (MLA)

 Property: P Tonkin (Chair), N O’Connor, D Stephens

 Publications: I Childs (Chair), A Lau, J Corcoran, I Harding, P Griggs

 Scientific Studies: I Childs (Chair), P Moss, P Nunn, N O’Connor, K Scott, T Sigler

 Traveller: L Scanlan (Chair), L Darii, S Scanlan, I Childs (ex officio)

 Treks and Activities Committee: C Spriggs and W Mackenzie (Co-chairs), M Comer, A Johnston, J Lamont, B Reid

A new informal advisory group, which will meet only on an ad hoc basis, is forming up to discuss overall technology developments for RGSQ. e.g. updgrading our boardroom facilities. Members who have expressed an interest in this area are Graham Rees, John Fairbairn, Sarah Barry and Councillor John Tasker.

While most of the above committees currently have a full complement of members, we would welcome members who have an interest in and who could contribute to the Collections, Traveller and TAAC committees. If this is you, please contact the office and Lilia will put you in contact with committee chairs.

At the Council meeting reports were tabled from committee chairs for noting and discussion. This included some bright ideas for additions to the Bulletin from the newly-formed Publications committee, updates from the Scientific Studies and RGSQ Traveller committees and recommendations from the Honours committee for 2020 Thomson medal and Fellowship awards.

Property committee has been particularly active in progressing important issues associated with our facilities. For example, carpentry and electrical alterations in our kitchen, checking and re-supplying our first aid kit and finalising the Society’s workplace health and safety manual. In addition, we have been liaising with the building’s body corporate regarding fire safety matters.

Special Interest Map Group is planning activities for the coming year and Archives, Library and Map collection groups are continuing their work. Young Geographers have been active in visiting and presenting to schools and are planning an eventful year ahead with more educational, adventurous and social activities on their agenda. Members are always welcome to join and participate in any of these SIGs if they capture your interest.

The draft program for our monthly lectures in 2020 was reviewed by Council and we will be contacting prospective speakers to pin them down for dates and lecture titles. Among the exciting possible topics are remote sensing of reef systems, research on the lands of the ancient Maya in South America, impacts of feral animals in Australia and, closer to home, the BCC’s plans for developing Victoria Park in central Brisbane.

So, there is much going on behind the scenes at RGSQ. It’s clear that the new Council has energy and enthusiasm for leading a productive year ahead that will benefit the Society.

I look forward to seeing you at our Christmas party on December 3rd when there will be a couple of special awards and again a quiz to test your geographical knowledge ! 

Iraphne Childs, RGSQ President