Colleagues,

The response to my previous questions about shell clubs has been extensive and interesting. There seems to be a consensus that:

- certain geographical anomalies notwithstanding (i. e. Florida, which has a steady influx of older people from outside - most other states' worst nightmare, incidentally), most areas are seeing a decline in shell club membership and participation.
- this is not confined to shell clubs; herpetological and other nature societies also report declining membership. Anecdotal evidence suggests that fossil, gem and bird clubs seem to do all right, though.
- many people assert that clubs need a certain critical mass in terms of participant members (as opposed to those who pay dues but never turn up to meetings) and active programs in order to sustain themselves. If things fall below a certain level, toxic phenomena such as cliquism and over-familiarity that are diluted among a larger membership can become obvious and put potential new members off.
- many responses cited the unfashionability of nature hobbies among the young, and this is something that bears further investigation. I was utterly put off by my high school biology classes (in the UK, in the 1970s) because we started out with weeks of plant cell biology. There was no preamble giving an overview of the various kingdoms, and no mention of ecology, symbiosis, parasitism or anything else that might have grabbed the 12-year-old's imagination. I think they assumed we already knew that stuff, but the complete absence of biology from elementary schools in those days meant that we didn't. I don't know what it's like in US schools nowadays (though as my own lad goes through the New Jersey school system, I intend to find out), but the only reason I ever became interested in shells was because my father is a molluscan paleontologist.
So, the next question: how likely is it that a 12-year-old in the USA nowadays will receive a basic grounding in the divisions of nature, the groups of plants and animals and their role in their environments, and thereby perhaps become personally fascinated with some aspect of the subject?

Regards,

PC.

Paul Callomon
Collections Manager
Malacology, Invertebrate Paleontology and General Invertebrates
Department of Malacology
Academy of Natural Sciences
1900 Parkway, Philadelphia PA 19103-1195, USA
Tel 215-405-5096
Fax 215-299-1170
Secretary, American Malacological Society
On the web at www.malacological.org

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