The negotiations on the Constitution are moving forward. There is just some discussion as to how to how best to decide the Chair of the Trustee in the new setup. After much dialogue with the Solicitors, the paperwork to move to a CIO charity is now underway and the list of current trustees who will undertake the transfer is now decided.

Everyone should have received the flyer and booking form for the Conference. It promises a well-balanced programme covering a varied list of demos and lectures and some innovations such as back-up sessions in case of Covid, a webinar lecture from the US, time to allow judges to explain their reasoning for their choices in the Competition awards and more time to view the books. Alan Hall and the team have worked hard to keep the costs down and to negotiate a good deal with Bath University. As a result they have been able to hold to the same price as 2019. After three years of being starved of any major events in the Society’s calendar this is the ideal opportunity to reconnect with old friends, make new ones and exchange advice, ideas, hints and tips at the same time as learning from experienced binders.

The International Bookbinding Competition is moving ahead with the budget being approved and the sponsorship funding looking healthy. Changes to trophy awards are being made. The catalogue will be designed to differentiate from DB catalogues. 

The Council has agreed the appointment of Arthur Green as Bookbinder Editor. Arthur has gathered a team together comprising Hannah Brown, Sonia Serrao and Glenn Malkin and they have started to gather articles and material for the next issue.

Our new Finance Officer, Magalie Briand has taken over from Mike Summers and presented to Council a preliminary view of last year’s financial status which showed healthy cash positions both at central and regional level. Mike’s last act before handing over to Magalie was to prepare the 2021 year end accounts. He has passed them to the accountants and they are ready for review by the Trustees and will be presented at the AGM for approval before going to the Charity Commission.

Dominic Riley as outgoing President has nominated Marc Lamb of Harmatan as our next President.

It was agreed unanimously to accept Marc Lamb’s nomination for the post and his name will go forward for ratification at the AGM.

The Birmingham & Midland Institute which houses the Hippman Library is selling off part of the premises where the library is situated. After much prolonged correspondence between the BMI and West Midland region who administer the library on the Society’s behalf we have not had any firm proposal as to whether the BMI can offer us space elsewhere on their premises. The Region feels it can no longer run the library for the Society. Unless we can find somewhere else to house and administer the lending of the books we will be faced with closing the library and disposing of the collection, some of which contains treasured books that were donated to the Society. Options being considered are to offer the collection to another library e.g. St Bride Foundation Library in London or the Chantry Library in Oxford, or to sell the collection via auction or a suitable bookseller.

There will be an update report from the O&E group in the April Newsletter.

An e-Bulletin report on the recent hacking of the Society’s website has been issued by the Webmaster on 15th March 2022 

We are looking to ease the workload on the Webmaster and Membership Secretary roles, both of which are being carried out by Wendy Meeple, as they are becoming too much for one person to handle on a voluntary basis. Removing peripheral tasks (e-bulletins and mailings to overseas members for example) that have been tagged on to the two jobs as a matter of convenience or expediency is one approach. Finding an assistant to help on the membership is another. Therefore we are looking for the following volunteers:

  1. e-Bulletin Editor to receive COMPLETED drafts, review and post them on the website. 
  2. Secretary to Overseas Members. Webinars have enabled the Society to engage more with our overseas membership and not just provide the Newsletters and Bookbinder. The aim is to liaise with the members to ensure they are fully represented.
  3. Assistant to Membership Secretary. This is to help with members’ renewals and the number of email queries generated.

I appreciate that everyone is busy, time is precious and we all just want to do bookbinding but I am hoping that by spreading the roles of running the Society the workload will become less onerous and we can concentrate on how the benefits of being a member can help in being a binder. 

AND please remember we still need to find an Archivist!

If you wish to volunteer for any of these vacancies please contact Claire Redfern on secretary@societyofbookbinders.com

David Brown

Chairman