In areas where shelling can be easily done, competition can kill a shell
club experience for a potential new member.  If local shells have become
scarce, or most of the active shellers in a club are also selling shells,
sometimes they can become very competitive.   They don’t want to take new
members shelling, nor do they want new members to find out where the local
shells can be found.  If you’re not an active sheller, you can be greeted
warmly as a new customer.  However if you’re an active sheller, you may be
given the cold shoulder as an invader into their turf.  What fun is that?

Shea
Age 32




>From: Andy Rindsberg <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: Conchologists List <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Decline of shell clubs
>Date: Wed, 21 Dec 2005 17:45:46 -0600
>
>A few thoughts inspired by one of the best threads I've read on Conch-L.
>
>All this talk of youngsters makes me shake my head. The young don't always
>want to do what adults want them to do. Maybe we should place a few
>barriers
>in their path, and then they'd be curious to see what they're missing. I
>say
>this with humor, but basically this is no joke. Children want to explore,
>but if you try too hard to explain things, their curiosity is sated and
>they
>lose interest. Leave them wanting more.
>
>The trend toward observing rather than collecting living beings is not
>going
>to disappear anytime soon. It is much larger than COA, as several people
>have pointed out. So far, COA members have shown remarkable tolerance of
>nearly the full range of attitudes about collecting, from commercial
>dealing
>to craftmaking to aesthetic and scientific collecting. This is something
>you
>don't see in all fields -- since the days of Teddy Roosevelt, turkey
>hunters
>and Audubon birdwatchers have drifted apart socially and politically
>although they both prefer to live in a natural world and really ought to be
>on the same side, i.e., as conservationists. Banning the moderate kind of
>shell collecting that most COA members enjoy is not going to help science
>or
>conservation. It will not save species that are under stress from coastal
>engineering projects or pollution or global warming or reef dynamiting. All
>it will do will be to reduce public awareness of an important aspect of
>nature.
>
>Another strength of COA is the bond between amateur and professional
>collectors. This bond is emotional as well as pragmatic, as we've discussed
>before, and it is based on mutually earned respect. I suspect that more
>professional malacologists have a deeper understanding of what motivates
>amateurs in their field and what they spend time on, than professionals in
>most other biological fields. And the reverse is also true. Without
>volunteers, shell museums would have a much harder time getting things
>done.
>Maybe it's time for more professionals to start projects that rely on
>volunteers to accomplish worthy goals such as the documentation of species
>in selected areas. We've seen a few examples of this already.
>
>In some ways, COA is a "club of clubs". This is another mutually supportive
>situation. An individual shell club may collapse, but the larger society
>continues and enfolds the members who were left behind.
>
>As time goes on and divisive issues arise, bear in mind that tolerance and
>supportiveness are what make COA work so well. Try to "agree to disagree",
>even on some issues that seem very important, and keep the conversation
>going.
>
>All the best,
>Andy
>
>Andrew K. Rindsberg
>Geological Survey of Alabama
>
>--
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>

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