Dear Member,

We look forward to meeting you at our virtual Annual General Meeting on 30 June (4.00 pm London time / 16:00 BST); and extend a special welcome to our new members and international members.

We have much to celebrate in 2022 as we recently held our first online conference, ‘Pioneering Naturalists: Champions of Conservation and Environmental Engagement’, where we welcomed participants from around the world; we recently announced our Awards and Medals; Archives of Natural History is approaching its 50^th volume in 2023; and the new Council structure is working extremely well.

2021 saw SHNH undertake the revision of our Bye-laws and the election of a number of Portfolio holders for managing tasks essential to maintaining the Society’s activities. Some of these posts are up for election this year – the details will be available in the AGM papers. Later this year we will be delighted to welcome our new Editor formally into post. Strategic planning for the future is now underway.

Our Associate Editors continue to working extremely hard in processing and editing  articles for Archives of Natural History to ensure that our journal maintains its high standards of scholarship. That has necessarily impacted on preparation of the Newsletter, but we have developed new ways of keeping our members informed by using electronic newsletters for time-sensitive news.

We were delighted to announce our Awards in May: the Founders’ Medal to Theodore W. Pietsch; the President’s Award to Madeline Hutchins; and the Natural History Book Prize (John Thackray Medal) to Jordan Goodman for Planting the World: Joseph Banks and his Collectors: An Adventurous History of Botany. We will be announcing an Honorary Membership to the Society.

The official business of the AGM will be followed by a short break. The second half will see the presentation of the Society’s Awards and the giving of short talks by some of our Award winners. The Agenda for the AGM, and all the supporting documents including the list of nominees to Council portfolios, are available on the Society’s website. We have sent out invitations to the AGM by mail to those members lacking internet access and an email address.

I do hope you will be able to join us at our AGM on 30 June at 4.00 pm (16.00 BST).

• The Agenda for the AGM and all the supporting documents are available on the Society’s website. Please read these, or download them if you need to print them out.
  

• You must sign up to the join the /AGM on the Eventbrite page. On the Eventbrite page there is a ‘Join Event’ button. Please click on this and add in your current email address – this automatically adds you to the list of AGM delegates. Please note that registration will close on 29^th June.
• Prior to 30 June you will receive an email which will enable you to join the AGM Meeting. Clicking on the link in this email takes you into Zoom – you will have to download this software if you don’t already have it on your computer. If you already have Zoom you can simply open it and ask to ‘Join a Meeting’ and add in the code and password as sent in the email.

We look forward to a virtual meeting with you on June 30^th.

Gina Douglas

President, Society for the History of Natural History
www.shnh.org.uk @SHNHSocNatHist

Award Winners 2022