Introduction to Crystals and Gemstones
Raj Adgopul
- Region:
- Anywhere
- Notice Period:
- Regular (more than one month's notice)
- Type:
- Professional
- Fee:
- Paid: £150 to £300 plus travel depending on distance from Dorset. £100 online by Zoom,
- Category:
- Science
- Updated:
- 29th July 2026
I run a fair trade gemstone business, which means I spend a good deal of my time around the people who dig these things out of the ground.
This talk is about where crystals and gemstones actually come from. How they are formed, how they are cut and traded, how to tell a decent stone from a poor one, and what fair trade really means once you follow the chain all the way back to the mine.
I bring a box of pieces along and pass them round, so it is a hands-on afternoon rather than a lecture. People are always surprised by the weight of things, and by how little a stone is worth before anyone has done anything to it.
45 minutes, with time for questions.
Views: 26 | Enquiries: 0About Raj Adgopul
Raj Adgopul grew up in a village in central India. He spent four years working in Mumbai, sharing a room with 23 other people, with a personal space of six feet by three. He arrived in England in 2002 with £5 in his pocket, trained and worked as a nurse, took a degree and a postgraduate qualification, and nineteen years later found himself on the stage at the O2 in London, giving a TEDx talk to an audience of a thousand.
He now lives in a village in Dorset, which is where most of his best material comes from.
Raj has spoken to more than twenty Women's Institutes across Dorset, Devon, Somerset and Wiltshire, to u3a groups in Exeter, Bridport, Dorchester, Charmouth, Lyme Regis and Ferndown, and twice to the Bristol Commonwealth Society, the second time by popular demand. Audiences tend to describe his talks as very funny and quietly thought provoking, usually in the same breath.
"We had tears of laughter as well as tears of sadness." Jen Whitworth, President, Taunton Deane Divas WI
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