As many of you know, we had been hoping to hold a modified in-person Dallas Mineral Collecting Symposium this year, celebrating our 10th Anniversary. However, despite significant COVID-19 safety planning, recent developments present so many safety concerns that we’ve been forced to cancel all in-person activities for this year.

Over the last 10 years of holding the Dallas Symposium, we’ve been honored by the presence of fantastic guest speakers, and we understand how meaningful this educational and social event has become for people around the world. Adapting to this most unusual of years, we’re planning a two-day free webinar series, featuring “Greatest Hits” talks from the last decade! Thanks to BlueCap Productions, we have a decade of recorded talks from previous symposia available, so we’re going to play some favorites and throw in some fun surprises along the way! We distribute our programs more widely now that we did in the early years, so some of these talks are like rare gems from the vault.

We’ll be focusing activities in the early afternoons through early evenings (Central Time) to give our friends on the west coast and across the Atlantic as much opportunity to join live as possible.

In addition to the educational component of the Dallas Symposium, our benefit auctions and pledge drives have been significant fundraisers for treasured organizations in the hobby, raising funds for Mineralogical Record, Rocks & Minerals, Tucson Gem and Mineral Society, and mindat.org, organizations that need those funds now more than ever.

The webinar series will be free to access, but please consider making a donation to our benefiting organizations if you’re in the position to do so! We will make donation links and details available closer to the event dates.

We’re also adapting our annual benefit auction this year to move the auction online, featuring fine minerals, experiences, and mineralia, with assistance from our favorite volunteer auctioneer, Peter Megaw.