Unfortunately, I have to inform you that this disruption is set to continue. Your committee had been hopeful when the restrictions were first imposed that the autumn would bring some easing of the situation and sufficient certainty to be able to organise our autumn programme of lectures as normal. Given that matters will not have returned to what we have previously taken as ‘normal’ by the autumn, we are faced with two possible options. The first is to make a decision on the viability of each lecture on a month by month basis; or alternatively, to take the decision now to postpone the entire autumn programme until the New Year. Having carefully considered the current situation, the real uncertainties that face us, and having undertaken a detailed Risk Assessment around a possible autumn programme, and the responsibilities that SAHS would have to accept, the committee have come to the decision that postponement of the programme is our only realistic option.
Therefore, although we will need to review the situation again after Christmas, our intention is to recommence our lecture programme on Friday February 19th 2021, which meeting will also serve as the Society’s AGM, now postponed from Friday December 4th 2020. We are hopeful that all of those speakers who we had hoped to hear during the course of this year, but have now missed, will be able to join us at future dates in the not too distant future. We deeply regret having to make this decision but we have to be mindful of our responsibilities to both our membership and those invited to speak to us, and indeed to the wider community. Furthermore, I felt it important that we generate some level of certainty for our membership as to what our position is.
Both the Honorary Secretary and the Honorary Treasurer of the Society have written messages to the membership relating to this decision, and therefore I will not trespass too far into what they have to say. However, I would like to close with two points. Firstly, we have also thought carefully about your membership subscriptions in a period of an enforced reduction in activity. The lecture programme, although important, is only a part of what the Society incurs expenditure on, and so we have concluded that it would be injudicious to offer a reduced membership subscription for this year. However, we do feel able to positively commit to holding the present subscription rates for the next two years at least (until September 2022) as an acknowledgement and thank-you to our members for supporting the Society through these difficult months.
Secondly, many of you will know that the last few months have seen a boom in the use of online digital communications, such as Skype and Zoom. The latter in particular has been used to hold meetings and give lectures and tutorials, and many individuals have used it to keep in touch with family and friends. The question has been posed as to whether SAHS might also make use of this technology, not so much as a means of delivering our main lecture programme, but perhaps for occasional supplementary activities, such as additional talks or lectures. Your committee would very much like to know if there is an appetite for this among our members, sufficient to justify further investigation on our part. Please let us know your views via our website or by email.
Once again, our apologies for taking this course of action, but we felt that we had no choice. Please keep safe and I and my committee colleagues look forward to seeing you again at our meetings as soon as possible.
With my best wishes,
John
Dr John Hunt
Honorary President
