The Annual General Meeting of the Society was held at 2pm on Saturday 5 June 2021, by Zoom. The President, Professor Tim Cornell, was in the chair and welcomed members to this AGM held electronically due to the COVID-19 lockdown restrictions.
The President reported on the Society’s activities over the previous year, starting with its publication programme. He thanked the current Editors, Professor Peter Thonemann (JRS) and Professor Hella Eckardt (Britannia), and the Reviews Editors, Dr Myles Lavan (JRS) and Professor Will Bowden and Dr Natasha Harlow (Britannia). He particularly thanked Professor Eckardt who was now stepping down as Editor: she would be replaced by Professor Bowden who would now also become a Director and Trustee of the Society. Dr Nick Hodgson would now become the Britannia Reviews Editor. He also thanked Gina Coulthard for all her work on copy-editing Britannia. The President also reported that, during the year, Britannia Monograph 33 had been published: Michael Fulford, Amanda Clarke, Emma Durham and Nicholas Pankhurst, Silchester Insula IX: The Claudio-Neronian Occupation of the Iron Age Oppidum: The Early Roman Occupation at Silchester Insula IX. Britannia Monograph 34, Bridge over Troubled Water: The Roman Finds from the River Tees at Piercebridge in Context by Hella Eckardt and Philippa Walton, would be published soon. The President also noted that two further editions of Epistula had also been published online and emailed to members, and he thanked the Editor, Dr Frances McIntosh.
The President then turned to the programme of events and lectures. Despite the pandemic, the Society had continued with its events programme and held a number of events online. In November, Guy Bradley delivered a lecture on Rome and the Sea: Rethinking Early Roman History from a Mediterranean Perspective; and in March the Society held a joint event with the Hellenic Society on the theme of Domesticity and Domestic Life, with Zosia Archibald, Penelope Allison and Julia Hillner. The Society held another joint event at the end of April with the Hellenic Society on Race: Antiquity and its Legacy, chaired by Phiroze Vasunia, with Zena Kamash, Denise McCoskey and Dan-el Padilla Peralta. In May, the Society held another joint event, this time with the Association of Roman Archaeology and the British Museum, on New Research on Nero, with Andrew Burnett, Susie White, Ross Thomas and Carey Fleiner. We were delighted that more than 500 attended this online conference.
The President also reported on a number of forthcoming events. On 19 June, the Society’s Archaeology Committee will hold an online colloquium on New Discoveries Across the Empire, with talks on Piercebridge (Hella Eckardt and Philippa Walton), the legionary fortress of Valkenburg (Wouter Vos and Jasper de Bruin), Pompeii (Luana Toniolo), Aquincum (Orsolya Lang) and Split (John Wilkes). On 1 July, Joanna Ashe and Gabriel Bodard will hold an event looking at the digitisation of the Wood Archive and the Ehrenberg bequest of antiquities (Wood and Ceramic: Introducing Digital Methods with Classics Library Special Collections). On 3 July, the Society has organised a visit for members to Brading Roman Villa on the Isle of Wight. On 29 September, there will be another conference on Nero, Knowledge and Curiosity at the Court of Nero, with Dominic Rathbone, Siobhan Chomse, Rebecca Flemming and Shushma Malik. The postponed City of Rome colloquium, which had been scheduled to follow the AGM, will now be held on 27 October.
The Archaeology Committee again supported the Regional Heritage Centre’s Archaeology Forum at Lancaster University; otherwise, it continues to plan for the Roman Archaeology Conference (RAC/TRAC) which will now be held on 6–8 April 2022.
The President thanked Dr Matthew Symonds (the outgoing Chair of the Archaeology Committee) and Dr Ursula Rothe (the new Chair) for all their work, especially for the Roman Archaeology Conference; Professor Roland Mayer (Honorary Secretary and Chair of the Roman Studies Committee); Dr Clare Harvey (Chair of the Schools Committee); and everyone who has served on the Society’s committees and the Council, including the retiring members: Dr Simon Corcoran, Dr James Corke-Webster, Professor Serafina Cuomo, Dr Sophie Hay, Professor Helen Lovatt and Dr Ross Thomas. He also welcomed Professor Ida Östenberg, the Society’s new Honorary Member, appointed to replace Professor Jean-Louis Ferrary who sadly died last year. He also took the opportunity to thank Professor Greg Woolf, who had served as Editor of the JRS and, as Director of the ICS, had been attending Council meetings ex officio from 2015. The President thanked Professor Woolf especially for his involvement with the Society and his help with HARL and in setting up the Library Management Committee. Professor Woolf is moving to California in July and the President sent him the Society’s best wishes and profound thanks.
The President also thanked Ms Joanna Ashe and the team of Librarians, especially for their heroic efforts in keeping the Library open during the pandemic and for running the postal book service and the click and collect service, and sending out scans by email. The digitisation projects, funded by the A.G. Leventis Foundation and the Classical Association, resumed as soon as they were able to when the Library reopened. The HARL Board has continued with the fundraising campaign. The Classical Association has agreed to offer an annual grant to the Library in exchange for readership rights for CA members, and we are very grateful to the Classical Association for this support. The Society is also grateful to the Polonsky Foundation, which has given a generous grant to support the Schools Grants programme. The Society and the Library remain grateful to all members who continue to make donations, and members can still easily contribute online via the HARL website: https://www.hellenicandromanlibrary.org/Support-Us. Members may also make a donation while shopping with Amazon Smile and Give as You Live.
Resolutions
Dr Kay began by reading an extract from the report of the Society’s independent auditors, Buzzacott LLP, which is contained in the Society’s Annual Report and Financial Statements for 2020: ‘In our opinion the financial statements give a true and fair view of the state of the charitable company’s affairs as at 31st December 2020, and of its income and expenditure for the year then ended.’
Turning to the 2020 financial results: total income for the year was £427,000, a decline of 31 per cent on 2019. Although this seems alarming, this result is considerably better than it may at first appear, since the figure for total income in 2019 was inflated by an unusually large legacy donation of £178,000 and by revenue from the FIEC conference. If we adjust for these and a couple of other items, the total underlying income in 2020 fell by only 4 per cent. This is largely attributable to two factors: first, total income from the publishing agreements with Cambridge University Press, for JRS and Britannia, fell by 9 per cent; secondly, a reduction in investment income caused by a number of companies in our investment portfolio cutting their dividends during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Total costs for the year amounted to £365,000, a 20 per cent fall on 2019. This fall was mainly attributable to reduced editorial expenses, lower conference and events expenditure and a sharp decline in Library costs. The Society supports the Library by funding the librarians’ salaries, but the cost to the Society fell in 2020 as HARL had greater resources to support its own costs as a result of the fundraising campaign and, exceptionally, a number of the librarians were furloughed over the summer.
The bottom line is that the Society in 2020 had net income before investment gains and losses of £61,000 and a positive net cash flow of £48,000 from operating activities. This is a very good result in a challenging year. The value of the investments has more than recovered and over the current year in 2021 we should be able to make a small profit and more importantly have a positive cash flow. However, the growth in open access remains a threat to our publishing income from CUP. The publishing income represents about a third of our total income, so even a small percentage fall in revenue from this source has a meaningful effect on the finances of the Society. However, we have taken steps to reduce the running costs, including by reducing editorial costs and by centralising the secretariat to support both the Hellenic Society and the Roman Society. The increase in subscription rates will also help. The fundraising appeal continues, and we have enjoyed some small successes; so please do consider donating to this appeal.
Professor Cornell thanked Dr Kay and Dr Haarer for all their work on the accounts this year. He asked the members to approve the Report of the Council and Financial Statements for 1 January to 31 December: Dr Tim Leary proposed and Dr Simon Corcoran seconded the motion. That the Council be authorised to agree the remuneration of the Auditors was proposed by Mr Richard New and seconded by Ms Lesley Kumiega. That Buzzacott LLP be appointed Auditors of the Society for the period 1 January to 31 December 2021 was proposed by Mr Richard New and seconded by Professor Will Bowden.
Dr Penny Goodman proposed and Dr Henriette van der Blom seconded the following nominations for Council: as President for 2021–2022: Professor T.J. Cornell; as Vice-Presidents for 2021–2022: Dr A.M. Burnett, CBE, FBA, FSA, Professor C.H. Edwards, Professor D.W. Rathbone; as Honorary Treasurer and Honorary Secretary for 2021–2022: Dr P.B. Kay, FSA and Professor R.G. Mayer, respectively; and as Council members for 2021–2024: Dr C. Barron, Dr C. Bristow, Dr M. Musié, Dr H. O’Neill, Dr S. Malik and Dr J. Wood.
All the Resolutions outlined above were passed nem. con. There was no other business.
