Dear Member

The Covid-19 pandemic is back with a vengeance and, as a Society, we have had to stop our face to face activities once more. We will continue our policy of following Government Covid-19 guidelines and regulations which, at this stage, means that none of the Society's activities should involve leaving home. The Abinger Research Centre and library are closed and Hannah, Anne and Rose are working from home.

The Society continues by video, email, phone and post. The January Council meeting will be held by Zoom video, Bulletins are being put together and distributed as normal, the Collections are being prepared, our finances are satisfactory and, despite everything, new desk-based projects are on the way.

Two video conferences are coming up. The annual Symposium will be held by Zoom spread over two Saturday mornings on 27 February and 13 March and the Roman Studies Conference on the transition between the Late Iron Age and Early Roman period will be held by video conference on Saturday May 8 - events to look forward to with bookings via the Society's website.

Training by video is also continuing with several groups taking advantage of screen sharing facilities to arrange their own sessions. We managed to organise excavations at Cocks Farm Abinger and Old Park Farnham last summer so let's hope that we can still make some arrangements in the summer of 2021.

In the meantime, I would like to thank you for your continued support and hope you and your families and friends stay safe.

Nikki Cowlard

President

(as distributed with our February 2021 edition of our Bulletin)