The Annual General Meeting of the Society was held at 2pm on Saturday 6 June 2020, 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 Christopher Kelly (JRS) and Professor Hella Eckardt (Britannia), and the Reviews Editors, Professor Peter Thonemann (JRS) and Professor Will Bowden and Dr Natasha Harlow (Britannia). He particularly thanked Professor Kelly who was now stepping down as Editor; he would be replaced by Professor Thonemann who would now also become a Director and Trustee of the Society. Dr Myles Lavan would now become the JRS Reviews Editor. Since the last AGM, Dr Lynn Pitts has retired from her role as Publications Officer. Dr Pitts had held this role for 30 years, and had worked on Britannia since the early 1980s, and the Society wishes her a long and happy retirement. The President also reported that Britannia Monograph 31 Life and Death in the Countryside of Roman Britain had won the Current Archaeology Awards Book of the Year in February and congratulated the editors, Alexander Smith, Martyn Allen, Tom Brindle, Michael Fulford, Lisa Lodwick and Anna Rohnbogner. The President also noted that two further editions of Epistula had 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. Following last year's AGM, the Society had been busy with several events in June and July: an evening of lectures organised with the British School at Rome (with Ian Haynes and Thea Ravasi); a day conference with the Hellenic Society on ‘Saving Treasures for the World’; and the major FIEC/CA 2019 conference. The Society was one of the hosts of this event along with the Hellenic Society, CA, ICS and London colleges. Almost 450 delegates attended from a wide range of countries, and the Roman Society organised a panel on the contribution of the Society to the development of Roman Studies over the last century.
In the autumn, the Society had held a number of events, including a conference on Germanicus, a book launch for Peter Wiseman's House of Augustus and its annual conference at the British Museum with the Association for Roman Archaeology on ‘Roman Temples in Britain and Gaul: Recent Discoveries and Interpretations’. Since Christmas, before the COVID-19 pandemic put a stop to face-to-face events, the Society was pleased to welcome Professor Mireille Corbier to deliver the M.V. Taylor Lecture, and in March (just before the lockdown) we held a joint event with the Hellenic Society on the topic of ‘Animals in the Ancient World’, with Malcolm Heath, Emily Kneebone and John Pearce. The Society also arranged two visits to museum exhibitions for members: the Last Supper in Pompeii exhibition at the Ashmolean and the Troy – Myth and Reality exhibition at the British Museum.
The Archaeology Committee has supported two events: the 2020 Regional Heritage Centre's Archaeology Forum at Lancaster University; and a major three-day conference with the Royal Archaeological Institute on ‘Romans in North-East England: Recent Approaches’. Otherwise, the Archaeology Committee's main focus has been on the organisation of the Roman Archaeology Conference (RAC) in Split, which was to have been held in April, and is now scheduled to take place in 2021 (7–9 April).
The President thanked Dr Matthew Symonds (Chair of the Archaeology Committee) for all his work, especially for the Roman Archaeology Conference; Professor Roland Mayer (Hon. 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 Dario Calomino, Ms Sophie Jackson, Dr George Maher, Dr Katherine McDonald, Professor Andrew Poulter, Professor Victoria Rimell, Dr Ben Russell and Professor Mantha Zarmakoupi.
The President also thanked Ms Joanna Ashe and the team of Librarians. On the fundraising campaign for the Library, the President reported that since the last AGM, the Hellenic and Roman Library (HARL) Board has continued to make progress with the campaign. A very successful panel event chaired by Martha Kearney was held in the autumn on the theme of ‘Homer Today’. The digitisation projects funded by the AG Leventis Foundation and the Classical Association are still in progress and will continue when the Library is able to re-open. The President emphasised the gratitude of HARL to all members who are continuing to make donations, and he noted that members can still easily contribute online via the HARL website: https://www.hellenicandromanlibrary.org/Support-Us.
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 2019: ‘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 2019, and of its income and expenditure for the year then ended.’
Dr Kay recalled that the Society had serious problems last year with the previous auditors, MHA Macintyre Hudson, who failed to provide the accounts for the year to December 2018 in time for the June 2019 AGM. It was agreed at that AGM that we would part company with Macintyre Hudson and look for a replacement firm of auditors. As our independent auditors also prepare the accounts for the Hellenic Society and for HARL (the Hellenic and Roman Library), we conducted a search jointly with the Treasurer of the Hellenic Society and decided to appoint Buzzacott LLP to be the auditors of all three entities in respect of 2019. Inevitably there were some teething problems, as Buzzacott had to get up to speed with three entities whose accounts are closely interlinked, but we were sufficiently satisfied to recommend that Buzzacott should be appointed as auditors of the Society's accounts for the current financial year.
Turning to the 2019 financial results, total income for the year was £615,000, an increase of £190,000 on 2018 which was mainly due to a legacy donation of £178,000. Total income from the publishing agreements with Cambridge University Press, for the JRS and Britannia, rose 7% for the year to £150,000, which was excellent news, although there remains some concern about the potential impact of Open Access on future publishing income.
Total costs for the year amounted to £439,000, which included library costs of £217,000 in relation to the Society's contribution towards the funding of the salaries of the Librarians of the Joint Library under our 25-year agreement with the University of London.
As regards cash flow, the accounts of the Society show a net increase in cash in 2019 of £78,000. But this number is slightly misleading and, to get a more realistic view of the operational cash flow of the Society in 2019, a couple of exceptional items need to be taken into account. The first is that £57,000 of expenses on Librarians' salaries were not included in the 2018 accounts, because of their omission by our previous auditors, and this sum has therefore been included in the 2019 accounts. The second is that we received the one-off legacy of £178,000 mentioned earlier. Without these two exceptional items, the Society's cash flow would have been a negative £43,000 rather than a positive £78,000.
Finally, the net gain on our investments, managed by Newton Investment Management, was £219,000 in 2019 (a gross return of 19%). In 2020, over the five months to the end of May, it was down 7.4%, more or less in line with its benchmark.
Professor Cornell thanked Dr Kay for all his 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 Mr William Greaves Stocker seconded the motion. That the Council be authorised to agree the remuneration of the Auditors was proposed by Dr Helen Cockle and seconded by Mr William Greaves Stocker. That Buzzacott LLP be appointed Auditors of the Society for the period 1 January to 31 December 2020 was proposed by Mr William Greaves Stocker and seconded by Dr Helen Cockle.
Ms Lesley Kumiega proposed and Mr Mark McCaffery seconded the following nominations for Council: as Vice-Presidents for 2020–2021: Dr A.M. Burnett, CBE, FBA, FSA, Professor C.H. Edwards, Professor D.W. Rathbone; as Hon. Treasurer and Hon. Secretary for 2020–2021: Dr P.B. Kay, FSA and Professor R.G. Mayer, respectively; and as Council members for 2020–2023: Professor Will Bowden, Dr Henriette van der Blom, Dr Katharine Earnshaw, Dr Penny Goodman, Professor Julia Hillner and Professor Christian Laes.
Dr Kay introduced Resolution 5 on the increase of subscription rates from 2021. Under this proposal, the basic rate for full membership would be raised from £49 to £58, and the same percentage increase would be applied to all categories of membership, with the exception of student rates which would remain unchanged at £25. Dr Kay referred to the HARL fundraising appeal, as a result of which the Designated Fund now stands at about £620,000, which is still a long way from the original target of £3m, although ongoing costs have been mitigated somewhat by annual giving and dividends from the Designated Fund's portfolio of investments. On its own, this shortfall in our fundraising is significant, but bearable. However, because of the growth in Open Access, we now also face the threat of a decline in our publishing income from Cambridge University Press in respect of the JRS and Britannia. This publishing component represents £150,000 or about one-third of our total income, so even a small percentage fall in that income would have a meaningful effect on the finances of the Society. The fall could be larger, with some estimating a reduction in journal income of 50% over the next five to seven years. We have, of course, taken measures to reduce the running costs of the Society and these will begin to take effect in the current financial year. These include the creation of a centralised secretariat to support both the Roman and Hellenic Societies, and a reduction in editorial costs for the journals. However, the Council still recommends that an increase in subscription fees is necessary. The last increase in subscriptions was four years ago, and the one prior to that was in 2007. The increase will bring subscription rates into line with those that the Hellenic Society currently charges and they compare favourably with rates charged by many other learned societies. The resolution was proposed by Mr William Greaves Stocker and was seconded by Ms Lesley Kumiega.
All the Resolutions outlined above were passed nem. con. There was no other business. The President thanked Dr Haarer for all her work for the Society over the past year.
