The Hampshire Family Historian | Volume 51 No.1 | June 2024

HGS News

Chairman’s Report June 2024 sees the completion of my first year as your chairman. It is also the fiftieth year since the Society first came into being which you will, without a doubt, be fully aware of already! I have more to say about the founding members later. Both events provide a time for reflection as well as celebration. In my own case, since I became Chairman and started off our fiftieth year in June 2023 with a full complement of Officers and Trustees, I feel that, together, we have achieved a good deal in our efforts to help the Society to get back up to full speed after the events of early 2023. I have previously mentioned our published “Organisation Chart”, which sets out all the Roles and Responsibilities that HGS needs to fill to help it operate efficiently. Now with only one name in the boxes, it is treated as a ‘working document’ which can be easily updated as and when Trustees and Volunteers come and go. Also, since June last year, we have set up a functioning Sales Office, whereby all requests for our merchandise (CDs, Booklets, Maps, etc.,) are promptly processed by a dedicated Team led by our Office Manager, Sue Stannard. Records held on PDF are still being sent out separately and remotely by another dedicated Volunteer. One further IT update is that we are still working to ensure all our Reports and other Documents are saved to the Cloud, thereby making them all easily accessible to all Trustees and Volunteers, rather than being

reliant on individuals using multiple Thumb Drives / Flash Drives / Memory Sticks etc., as we have been in the past. This year’s AGM is fast approaching

and you will be reminded elsewhere in this issue about how to sign-up for our Online AGM on Tuesday evening June 18th. Do please join us - from around the world this year! - to hear what the Society has been doing on your behalf over the past twelve months and to cast your important votes during the formal proceedings. Please sign up soon – time is quickly running out! You will also realise by now that the AGM has been separated from our Summer Open Day because, in this our fiftieth year, we are holding a magnificent two-day ‘Golden Jubilee Event’ which is being held over the weekend of the 6th and 7th of July. It has been widely advertised since March this year, to make sure you have had every opportunity to read about it and to arrange to join us. Hopefully, you will have signed up during April to take advantage of our ‘Early Bird’ offer for tickets at reduced prices.

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