Update: November 2012

Annual General Meeting

The Association held its first AGM, which was attended by representatives of 23 member organizations, at Gloucestershire Archives on 6 September 2012, as part of its quarterly Forum meeting.

The AGM ratified the draft Constitution, subject to a number of amendments, and a copy of the agreed Constitution can be downloaded by clicking here. A Committee to run the Association was also elected, as follows - Chairman: Steven Blake; Secretary: Vicki Walker; Treasurer: David Scriven; other members: Alison Hobson and Mary Sullivan. There are still up to three vacancies on the Committee, so if anyone would like to be co-opted, to help us take the Association forward, we would be delighted to hear from them. We are certainly pleased to report that Ben Berry, a recent graduate member of the Forest of Dean Local History Society, has agreed to edit an e-newsletter for the Association, which will be regularly emailed to members and posted on our website. The Association's second AGM will be held on 6 June 2013.

Next Forum Meeting on 3 December at 2 pm at Glos Archives

The Association now has 37 member organizations and we are hoping that still more will join us in the coming weeks and months. Our next Forum meeting will be held at Gloucestershire Archives at 2 pm on Monday 3 December, at which Vicky Thorpe, of the Archives staff, will talk about opportunities for local history societies to co-operate with the Archives.

As usual, the Forum will also include news from the Archives and from the County History Trust/Victoria County History, but we are going to experiment with a new format for News from Member Groups, which - as an increasing number of representatives are attending Forum meetings – are tending to take up rather more time than was previously the case. From the meeting on 3 December onwards, we are asking representatives to email their news (plus any photographs) to Mary Sullivan (sullivan469@btinternet.com), who will work with Ben Berry to add all news and images to the proposed GLHA Newsletter. We are also asking all member groups if they would like to give a short report at the Forum meeting on 3 December, on any recent innovation or particularly successful activity or event, and if so, how much time they would like allotted to them (between 5 and 10 minutes), and whether any equipment, such as a slide or digital projector, is needed. A small number of groups will then be chosen to give their report, and if there are too many for the time allotted to News from Groups (around 40 minutes in all), some will go to the top of the list for the next Forum meeting on 4 March 2013. Hopefully this will enable us to keep Forum meetings to under two hours in future.

Bryan Jerrard Award

The December Forum will also include an announcement of the winner of this year's Bryan Jerrard Award for the best article in a local history publication during the past year (the 10 finalists for which will be announced in mid-November), and the meeting will end with the traditional festive tea, coffee and mince pies.

Future Events

The GLHA Committee meets regularly to discuss the Association's future activities and events, including arranging speakers at Forum meetings and plans for its annual Summer Regional Meeting, which was always such a popular part of the former GRCC Local History Committee's annual calendar. The next Regional Meeting will be hosted by Stonehouse History Group on Saturday 6 July - so please get the date in your diaries now! - while the Forest of Dean Local History Society will be hosting the equivalent meeting in 2014. Work is also underway on organizing a Local History day on the theme of 'Great Houses' for the autumn of 2013 (date and venue to be announced), and the Association will be working with Gloucestershire Archives to deliver a day on writing local history for publication on 8 June 2103. Other events 'in the pipeline' include a workshop on creating local history websites for beginners.