Celebrating Croll - our new appeal.

Celebrating Croll

A message from Professor Iain Stewart. 

Professor Iain Stewart, President of RSGS

James Croll 

Since it opened in July 2011, the Fair Maid’s House has been enthusiastically welcomed by its visitors – adults and children alike – as an imaginative, informative and inspirational place for learning about geography and the world around us.

Now, in celebration of the RSGS’s 130th anniversary, we plan to refresh and extend the interpretative displays and facilities inside and outside the building, to give visitors even more to see, to maximise the space available for visiting schools and other groups, to give us more flexibility when running events, and to celebrate the tremendous contribution made by the 19th-century Scottish scientist James Croll to geographical thinking and our modern understanding of climate cycles – how variations in the Earth’s orbit affect its climate, leading to regular and predictable ice ages.

The Garden Today

We want to transform the plain ‘garden’ area into an exciting outdoor learning and visitor space. To do this, we need to employ a project designer and provide a budget for materials and labour, and we plan to include specially-commissioned artwork that reflects Croll’s work. We want to create an ‘outdoor room’ that will be another beautiful space for visitors and will honour an inspirational Scottish scientist.

To complement this new development outdoors, we also plan to update the interpretation panels and displays indoors with attractive and accessible information and learning materials, so that the Fair Maid’s House continues to be a repository of current thinking as well as historical knowledge.

Some design ideas from students at the Edinburgh College of Art

We have set a target for the project of £16,000. If we can raise more than this from members and other supporters, then we can do even more to improve the Fair Maid’s House for all our visitors, and to support its ongoing running costs.

Every donation will make a difference, so please help us if you can.

Donate Online

Alternatively you can print and complete this donation form and send to RSGS, Lord John Murray House, 15-19 North Port, Perth, PH1 5LU

Dr Catherine Delano-Smith Awarded with the Bartholomew Globe

We were delighted to award Dr Catherine Delano-Smith with our Bartholomew Globe award on Monday 24th March.

Dr Delano-Smith with RSGS President Professor Iain Stewart and the Bartholomew Globe

Dr Delano-Smith is a leading geographer and historian of cartography and has done a great deal over the course of more than thirty years to deepen and widen research in the history of cartography, within the UK and across the world, becoming a lynchpin of the cartography community.

She has been one of the foremost activists behind the resurgence of the critical history of cartography, not only in her own works which have been many and influential, but also in her organisation of meetings through The International Society for the History of the Map, in her support of a bespoke and well-respected lecture series and, vitally, in her role as the editor of Imago Mundi, the world’s leading journal for the history of cartography.

Ed Stafford Receives Mungo Park Award

The RSGS was delighted to award Ed Stafford with our Mungo Park Medal after his talk at Perth Concert Hall on Monday 24th March

RSGS President Prof. Iain Stewart and Mungo Park Medal Winner Ed Stafford FRSGS

Ed completed one of the world’s last great adventures when he walked the entire length of the South American river, probably the world’s longest river.
 

Ed Stafford’s journey down the Amazon River was an inspiring example of the sort of feats an individual can achieve when they really put their mind to it. 

Ed used his journey to inspire others by filming and blogging his two and a half year adventure, gaining followers worldwide, and forming the basis for a documentary series and book. He wanted to create an adventure that would excite people about the Amazon and to discover both its wonders and its problems. He had first gained expedition experience with Trekforce Expeditions and carried forward their slogan “adventure with a purpose” as his guiding principle.

However, Ed would insist that Walking the Amazon was a world-first expedition first and foremost, but that he hoped that an ecological message would spread in tandem. He was personally concerned with the issues surrounding deforestation in the Amazon, and hoped that by enthusing people about the Amazon they might start to share his concerns. The big aim of his adventure was to get people so involved with the Amazon that they would start to care about its future.

With this in mind, and in recognition of Ed’s outstanding contributions to geographical knowledge through exploration in potentially hazardous physical environment, RSGS President Professor Iain Stewart presented Ed Stafford with the RSGS's Mungo Park Medal and honorary fellowship of the Society.

The Mungo Park Medal has been awarded since 1930 in recognition of outstanding contributions to geographical knowledge through exploration in potentially hazardous physical and social environments. Previous recipients include Thor Heyerdahl, Freya Stark, Kate Adie and John Simpson.

Professor Iain Stewart receives award from American Geophysical Union

The Society's President, Professor Iain Stewart, was awarded with the Athelstan Spilhaus award by the American Geophysical Union.

The Athelstan Spilhaus Award is awarded not more than once annually to an individual AGU member for devoting portions of their career to conveying to the general public the excitement, significance, and beauty of the Earth and space sciences. Outreach activities may be through books, essays, newspaper articles, speeches, films or photographic displays, exhibits, radio or television pieces, interviews, web sites, or other media; the goal being to reach wide audiences and enhance public understanding in settings distinct from formal education. Robert H. Eather was the first recipient of the Spilhaus Award in 2006.

Iain Stewart is Professor of Geoscience Communications at Plymouth University. Image (c) Plymouth University.

Professor Stewart is well known for the films he has made with the BBC, including Rise of the Continents, How Earth Made Us and Earth: The Power of the Planet. He has been President of the RSGS since February 2012.

AGU formally recognised the 2013 Union Awardees, Medalists, and Prize recipient during their Honors Tribute, held at the Fall Meeting in San Francisco, California on 11th December.

Established in 2003, the Spilhaus Award is named in honor of geophysicist and meteorologist Athelstan F. Spilhaus Sr. who enthusiastically made innovative contributions to science, education, and public service. He was a scientist, inventor, innovator, cartoonist, and leader in the geosciences community. His outreach to the general public included an informative science center at the 1961 Seattle World's Fari and "Our New Age," and a long-running science cartoon in some 100 Sunday newspapers throughout the US.

From our President - Professor Iain Stewart: Please help our Digital Drive.

From our President - Professor Iain Stewart:
 
Geography is great! It gives us a wonderful way of exploring and explaining our world. It covers a wealth of issues and interests. It offers something for everyone. 

The RSGS is a repository of some of the greatest geographical and adventure stories of the past 150 years;
we are determined to share them and to restore an appreciation of geography in Scotland. 

People who know what we are doing, like what we are doing — they like our talks programme, our education projects, our events, our visitor centre, our newsletter. But not enough people know what we are doing. For geography to survive and thrive, we must appeal to many more people and to young people, and we must inspire enthusiasm for geographical issues amongst a host of competing interests. 

To do this, we need to develop new ways of communicating that are far-reaching, innovative, creative, modern, and exciting. With c80% of the UK's adults regularly accessing the internet, and nearly half of all adults (and c.90% of 16-24 year olds) using social networking sites, we need to make significant improvements to the RSGS's digital communications.
We need to:

redesign the RSGS website so that it is easier to use, more informative, more reliable, and more accessible from mobile phones and tablets;

increase our electronic communications and develop our new social media;

develop imaginative new digital resources for individuals, schools and other educational groups;

broaden access to the RSGS's current activities and fascinating heritage, particularly for the many people unable to visit us in Perth.

We know we can captivate and excite people when we have contact with them. Better digital communications will help us to contact more people more efficiently, to share our passion for geography and prove the vitality of our subject.

Can you please help us?

£25 would bring two pages of the website up-to-date

£40 would help us to buy film-editing software

£75 would help us to buy a simple animated illustration

£120 would buy a digital photo frame

£750 would buy a high-quality multi-function camera kit 

As a professor of geoscience communication, I fully endorse this drive to make the RSGS more visible and accessible. Every donation will make a difference, so please help us if you can.

 
Professor Iain Stewart,
President

To donate to our Digital Drive campaign, please visit this website, scroll to the bottom and click the yellow "Donate Now" button.  Thank you.

www.rsgs.org