Letter from the President

(photo: Kurt Graf) (photo: Kurt Graf)

RHN 110/2013 | EURHO

Dear Colleagues,

Many of you were in Bern last week where we enjoyed the hospitality of the Archives of Rural History and the Swiss Rural History Society. This was a big meeting – of over 300 rural historians – drawn from across the world. Everyone agrees that it was a very fine conference. One colleague from Spain was kind enough to email and say that ‘I learned quite a bit, I discussed a lot and I enjoyed even more’. Another, from Italy, mentioned how ‘it was one of the most interesting conferences I have attended in recent years’. I am sure that everyone who was there shares some or all of these views: it was a great place to renew friendships, to meet new people, to discover what colleagues were doing and to be stimulated by their work. And, as my Spanish colleague said, ‘The organisation was perfect’. He went on, ‘For such a young organisation, with so few years of life, in my opinion the results have been superb’. We can all agree with that. I am sure that I speak for everyone when I offer my thanks to Peter Moser and his team for an absolutely excellent conference. Many of us also discovered what an attractive town Bern is, and took the opportunity to see a little of the Swiss countryside.

The conference website now contains several hundred photographs of the conference taken by the conference photographer. Do look to see if you are there. Some colleagues have never looked better!

There are two other pieces of news from the conference. First, the officers of the Society were re-elected for a further term at the AGM. I will serve two further years as president, and Ernst Langthaler and Peter Moser were re-elected to their positions as secretary and treasurer respectively. I offered my thanks to them at the meeting and am delighted to do so again here. We are also very much indebted to the practical support we receive from Ernst’s research centre at St Pölten. Our vice-presidents remain Rosa Congost and Leen Van Molle. Second, the management committee received proposals for two further conferences. After deliberation, it decided that in 2015 we shall meet in Girona, probably on 7-10 September. In 2017 we will convene in Leuven. We will publish a timetable for the call for papers etc for the 2015 conference in the next few months.

I look forward to seeing many of you at the ESSHC meeting in Vienna next April. In the meantime, keep snippets of news flowing for this email list. And do think of new and exciting proposals for Girona in 2015.

Richard Hoyle
President, EURHO