Dear Members,

As I write this, we are in negotiations and hope soon to exchange contracts for the sale of Doughty Mews, after over 40 viewings of the premises. We have looked at a couple of prospective sites for our new home, with more to come; no decision has been made yet as to where we will be, but as I said before, we are aware of the need for accessibility.

The agreement under which IBTauris will sell our publications (except for JEA and EA) went live on 1 April, and there is now a dedicated section on their website where our books are described and can be purchased.  Our existing stocks of books for sale were moved out of the Doughty Mews premises in March, leaving space for the ongoing reorganisation of library volumes which we will not be keeping.

We welcome Stephanie Boonstra, who has been appointed our new Collections Manager and will start work later this month. Stephanie has worked for us in the past as a volunteer.

We have had ten applications for prospective new trustees and will be interviewing all the applicants during the course of the next week, with a view to announcing the Board’s recommendations in early July.

In late April we held a strategy away-day, in addition to our regular board meetings; Trustees, Director Cedric and Deputy Director Carl were able to focus on our transformation into a research institute and our research and education priorities in the short and long term.  Many thanks to Anandh Owen for letting us use his offices for this.  More work remains to be done and we plan to have two more half-day sessions this year.

With best wishes,

Margaret Mountford