The Future of ANLHS: A Letter from the
Chairman and Executive
Dear
Member,
The ANLHS meeting at the Lit & Phil on 27th February is a Members’ Meeting. As in
earlier years it will begin with a presentation – this time by ‘History
Wardrobe’ - and the Members’ Meeting proper will follow. There will be one item on the agenda and
this is the future of ANLHS.
We have reached the position where,
regretfully, the current Executive Committee cannot continue and will be
standing down at the AGM in November 2016.
The
reality is that we have not been able to form a full active committee for some time.
One member of the committee is currently doing three jobs! We have no Secretary
and ideally we should have a Programme Secretary as well as a Minutes Secretary
and Publicity Officer. According to the Constitution (amended November 2012) we
should have a committee of 6 officers (chairman, vice-chairman, secretary,
treasurer, editor of T&T and editor of website) as well up to 7 additional members.
Currently we have 9 committee members, some with health problems and Michael
Thompson and Jane Bowen gave notice of their retirements long before the last
AGM.
We
have put out several appeals for people to join the ANLHS Executive committee over
the last three years but without success. In addition, specific invitations
have been sent to likely individuals (9 in total) all with an interest in local history
or North East history, inviting them to join the ANLHS Executive. Although a
couple initially expressed some interest, none have actually volunteered to
join the committee. Recent experience also tells us that there is very limited
interest in participating in ANLHS business meetings. Some previous Members’
Meetings have been reasonably well attended but many people have left after the
Speaker’s presentation. Attendance at recent AGMs has been very poor with well
below 50% of member societies being represented (out of around 50 member
societies, 17 attended at the 2014 AGM and 16 at the 2015 AGM).
In
addition, our membership is diminishing. Four fewer LHSs renewed their membership
of ANLHS this year. The (very) few larger
LHSs function independently but many smaller LHSs are struggling to survive.
Over the last few years at least one has closed each year. The problems of many
local societies are mainly due to demography with membership becoming
increasingly elderly but with young people not getting involved. They are not interested in talks in village
halls or in local history journals. ANLHS came into existence in 1966 with the
objective of encouraging the growth of the study of local history within the
county. At that time, hardly any local
history societies existed – now there are about 50. It could be argued therefore that ANLHS has
done its job. Although it is a cliché, times are changing dramatically and, as
an organisation, we cannot go on as in the middle of the last century.
The
current Executive committee is therefore of the view that, despite their best
efforts in recent years, ANLHS cannot continue beyond 2016. Accordingly,
an Extraordinary General Meeting will be arranged at Stannington village hall
for Saturday 30th April where a motion to close ANLHS will be put
and where decisions about an orderly closure of the Association will be taken.
The
Members’ Meeting following the
‘History Wardrobe’ presentation on 27th February is intended to
provide members with the opportunity to express their views on this
situation. If members are not attending
this event we would welcome written observations and comment to the above
address or email address by February 24th 2016.
Yours
sincerely,
