Minutes of the Council Meeting of the Viking Society

MINUTES OF THE COUNCIL MEETING OF THE VIKING SOCIETY held on Friday 5 November 2010 in University College London

The President, Judith Jesch, was in the chair.

Those present were: Chris Abram, Lesley Abrams, Joe Allard, David Clark, Vicky Cribb, Alison Finlay, Jennifer Hunt, John McKinnell, Rory McTurk, Richard North, Richard Perkins, Carl Phelpstead, David Reid, Elizabeth Ashman Rowe, John Townsend, Diana Whaley and Kirsten Williams.

(John Hines was in attendance for agenda item 11.)

Apologies were received from: Martin Arnold, Haki Antonsson, Chris Callow, Anthony Faulkes, Alaric Hall, Christina Lee, Ray Page, Matthew Townend and Tarrin Wills.

1. Minutes of the previous meeting

The minutes of the meeting on 22 May 2010 were read and approved.

2. Matters arising from the minutes

3. Notification of other business

Chris Abram gave notice of other business to be raised.

4. Business from the chair

5. Membership

Chris Abram reported that at the date of the meeting the Society had 540 individual members in good standing. There had been 15 new members join the Society since the May meeting and three members had left. There were 115 institutional members (no change) and the Society participated in 52 publication exchanges (no change).

6. Finance

David Reid reported that the Society had about £7,700 in the bank, and approximately £3,300 in its PayPal account. He noted that this meant that the Society had slightly less money than is usual at the autumn meeting, and suggested that the Council continue to consider raising subscription rates. Chris Abram noted that owing to the earlier than usual date of the autumn meeting, fewer than normal subscriptions had been received to date. The Council agreed to keep subscription rates under review, but did not see that changing them immediately was desirable. The reprint of NION and the new issue of Saga-Book had been paid for. Chris Abram reported that the cost of the Annual Dinner was roughly the same as the previous year: the Society was subsidising ordinary guests to the tune of about £8, while student members received a subsidy of about £18 per head. At date of meeting, the Peter Foote Memorial Fund contained almost £6000, of which £4000 was made up of takings from the book auction.

7. Support Fund

The Support Fund Sub-Committee recommended that three awards be made to members: John Shafer to be awarded £150. Nahir Otano Gracia was to be awarded £200. Emily Lethbridge was to be awarded £300.

The Council approved these awards.

8. Publications

Alison Finlay reported that Saga-Book had recently been printed and distributed to members. Two articles for Saga-Book 35 had been accepted, subject to revisions. A reprint of NION I had recently arrived from the printers, and the new edition of NION II was ready for printing.about to be reprinted. The pPrinting of NION II had been held back until supplies of the current edition were lower.because of lack of space in the Society’s storeroom. Alison Finlay reported that the both reprint of NION Is contained only minor corrections; the new edition of NION II also had newly updated bibliographies and a discussion of the principles of normalization observed in the texts. The Dorothea Coke Fund of the University of Cambridge had made two separate awards of £1000 to the Society in order to subvene the publication of the new volume of essays on the Fornaldar sögur and of the translation of Heimskringla (volume 1). Richard Perkins’s Dorothea Coke lecture was due to be published in the spring. Several new publications had been proposed to the Society: Annette Lassen had offered a translation of Hrafngaldur Óðins, the typescript of which was under review. David Clark and Ármann Jakobsson had offered a translation of Þorláks saga, which the Council agreed would need to be reviewed before a decision was taken whether to go ahead with it. Emily Lethbridge had proposed that the Society publish an introductory guide to Gísla saga. The Council agreed that her typescript should be reviewed as normal when it was available, but noted that (with the exception of Diana Whaley’s introduction to Heimskringla) there was no precedent for the Society publishing this type of work. Alison Finlay reported on behalf of Anthony Faulkes that new searchable versions of some of the Society’s publications had been produced for the publications website: all volumes of Saga-Book up to 22 had now been digitized in searchable form. Rory McTurk asked whether further editions of NION were possible or likely. The Council agreed that the NION sub-committee should continue to sit and keep NION under review, under Rory McTurk’s chairmanship. Alison Finlay asked the Council to consider a request from Donata Kick that a number of Saga-Book articles by John McKinnell might be reprinted in a festschrift. The Council gave its approval to this proposal.

9. Prizes

The Council approved the award of the following prizes: The Townsend Prize: Richard Cole The Turville-Petre Prize: Tom Birkett The Margaret Orme Prize: Dale Kedwards

The Council agreed to award the Margaret Orme Prize to Dale Kedwards even though he had been nominated on the basis of work produced during a Master’s course. The Council discussed whether the Orme Prize should be restricted to undergraduates or awarded on the basis of work done as an undergraduate, recognising that the current rubric for the award left room for ambiguity. The Council agreed, in principle, that they might like to consider MA candidates if suitable submissions were received, but recognised that it would be unfair—as well as practically very difficult—to compare MA work with undergraduate work in a competition for a single prize. Lesley Abrams suggested that in future the Council might, at its discretion, award more than one prize in a given year: one on the basis of undergraduate work and one on the basis of MA work. If no suitable candidate was nominated in either category, one of the awards would not be made. The Council approved this idea, subject to a new, clearer set of guidelines for the award of the Orme Prize being produced and approved at a subsequent Countil meeting.

10. Peter Foote Memorial Fund

Alison Finlay reported that Peter Foote’s children had most generously offered the sum of £30,000 to found a bursary that would pay for one postgraduate student each years to spend time in the Nordic countries. The monies raised from the book auction and other donations would be added to this sum, with the hope that interest on the total amount would provide a sustainable means of providing a small number of bursaries each year. The Council agreed that it would be appropriate for the Support Fund sub-committee to assess applications, but that the Council should formally approve all awards. The President undertook to write to Peter’s family to express the Council’s gratitude.

11. The Vice-Presidencies in Council

Since the previous meeting, a sub-committee consisting of John Hines, Rory McTurk and Diana Whaley had been convened to consider the role of Vice-Presidents in Council. John Hines was present for this agenda item, and he explained the committee’s recommendations: a document summarizing these had previously been circulated. John Hines reported that the sub-committee recommended that Vice- Presidencies should henceforth have a limited term; that the role of Vice-Presidents should be more clearly defined; and that there was no need to change the Society’s constitution, and that such a step should be avoided if possible. If the Council wished to honour a member for his or her long-standing contribution to the Society’s activities, it might make more use of the Hon. Life Member category rather than appointing him or her to a Vice-Presidency. The Council thanked John and the other members of the sub-committee for their work before discussing the proposals. Owing to a shortage of time, these discussions reached no conclusion, and the Council agreed to return to this issue at its next meeting.

12. Future Meetings

Alison Finlay reported that she had received no response from Adolf Friðriksson; Clive Tolley was proposed as an alternative speaker for the spring meeting, which would be held in UCL in late February or early March. The Student Conference would take place in Cambridge on Saturday 12 February.

13. Any Other Business

Chris Abram informed the Council that the Society’s website had been redesigned and a permanent URL – www.vsnr.org – had been acquired for it. He invited Councillors to look at the new website and make suggestions of any improvements they thought it might need.