THE VENTURA GEM SHOW—The 50th Annual Gem,  Mineral, Lapidary & Fossil Show of the Ventura Gem & Mineral Society (VGMS)  --  Our Golden Anniversary Show! — takes place March 5-6, 2011, at the Ventura County Fairgrounds (10 AM - 5 PM, Saturday; 10 AM - 4 PM, Sunday).  Admission is FREE!

Our Golden Anniversary Show! This free show features over 50 displays of gems, minerals, fossils, and award-winning hand-crafted jewelry from private collections throughout southern California.  On-going demonstrations will give visitors up-close looks at lapidary artists demonstrating their skills in person, including gemstone cutting and polishing, silversmithing, and colorful glass bead forging.  Raffle prizes and silent auctions for rocks, minerals, and fossils, as well as a flea market, plant sale, and over 15 dealers selling all manner of minerals, jewelry, and fossils are part of the festivities.  With a range of kids’ activities offering fun, educational prizes, this is a show the whole family can enjoy.

 As at past VGMS shows, there will be an emphasis on kids and education.  On entering the show, all kids will be given a free polished stone.  VGMS members have joined forces with neighboring rock clubs in Oxnard and Thousand Oaks to create 230 educational rock boxes for distribution to public schools throughout Ventura County.  Info about those boxes will be on hand for teachers, along with free rock samples and free educational materials for those who bring their teacher ID cards.  Each year in classrooms all across Ventura County, at science fairs, and in our one-room society museum, VGMS members share rocks, fossils, and gems and the geological processes that shaped them with hundreds of young children.  The rock box project, along with donations of books to school libraries, is an extension of these sorts of on-going educational efforts.  At the show, kids also will enjoy sand-sifting for gems and fossil shark teeth, a “Spinning Wheel” with rock prizes, and “Paint-a-Fossil” activities with plaster casts of fossils, as well as a free coloring station with coloring book pages of rocks, minerals, and fossils.  Overlooking the Kids Activities area will be a fierceAllosuarusdinosaur skull cast, along with info about the society’s museum, where teachers, home-schoolers, and Scouts can arrange tours by appointment.

VGMS members have sponsored a show every year for the past 50 years to share their activities and collections with the community.  The society is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, educational organization and welcomes new individual and family members.  VGMS hosts monthly lectures on earth science topics and lapidary arts, makes presentations to area schools, and conducts field trips for members and guests that often involve collecting rocks, minerals, and fossils in southern California and neighboring states.  The society was founded in 1946 to encourage interest in geology, mineralogy, paleontology, the lapidary arts, and related areas through education, activities, and exhibitions, such as this annual show.

The show is the society’s major fund-raising event, helping to underwrite their educational activities.  For further info, call the Show Publicity Chair Jim Brace-Thompson (805-659-3577) or Show Chairman Andy Anderson (805-987-0043) or visit VGMS web site:  www.vgms.org.