This report covers the period from our postponed 2020 AGM in September 2020 to the AGM in April 2021, the coronavirus pandemic having forced us to abandon the end of the 2019/2020 programme.
After the September AGM was conducted by email, we were still unable to hold face to face meetings and decided to hold virtual meetings by zoom.
Tim Porteous, local historian and storyteller gave the first zoom talk on Thursday 3rd December discussing “Is that true? — “historical truth” and the role of oral tradition” The meeting was joined by 25 members.
The success of the first meeting encouraged us to continue with the meetings by zoom and in January 2021 Stephanie Leith of East Lothian Council’s Archaeological Services described the research which had been carried out on St Martin’s Church, Haddington in “New light on an old ruin.”
Jenni Morrison, Associate of Addyman Archaeology, described the community project to restore the buildings of Black Bull Close in Dunbar at our February 2021 meeting.
“The Marquess of Dalhousie — duty, devotion and diamonds” was the subject of the March meeting when Fran Woodrow, one East Lothian Council’s Archivists described the life of the Marquess through letters and papers from “The Coulston Archive”
The last meeting of the session was a talk on the Scottish Caribbean Historical connection by Professor Sir Geoff Palmer. We continued to have between 20 and 30 members attending the zoom meetings.
The April meeting would normally also have the business of the 2021 AGM but this year as last it will be conducted by email to ensure that we communicate with all members and that sufficient members agree to the reports for the AGM to be quorate.
At the AGM in September 2020, it was agreed that the subscription cost would rise because we could foresee that our costs would increase. However, because we did not hold face to face meetings some members who usually paid in cash did not renew and our membership numbers fell to 80. We did, however, continue to communicate with all who had been members during the previous year by keeping them in the email list in the hope that they would retum later this year.
Vivian Hastie
Convenor