For more than 20 years the English educational charity "The British Sundial Society" - usually known as BSS has performed a useful task to educate the public in the arts and science of sundials - or gnomonics as it is also called. Its founders took several important steps to publicise the heritage of the sundials of the British Isles and as a part of this they initiated and have since maintained two databases of all existing sundials and mass dials of merit and they produce a high quality journal called the Bulletin four times a year. The databases of dials are MIDAS compliant and they are now recognised by the heritage organisations as the National Databases of sundials of all types in the UK and Eire.
The society arranges meetings to provide opportunities for anyone interested in dials to meet up with others of similar interests. A residential weekend is held, usually the weekend after Easter at different places around the country and a one day meeting is held in Newbury on a Saturday in September.
As well as this they started and maintained a website which contains many useful and interesting sections for those who would like to learn more about dials and dialling generally. That website may be found at sundialsoc.org.uk. Over the years membership rose above 600 but in recent years this membership has collapsed and in April 2014 was around 371.
The society is governed by a Council, the members of which are trustees of the charity and by a team of 'Specialists' who each have specific responsibilities - like running the National Databases of dials or editing the Bulletin. At present there are seven trustees and ten specialists. The trustees are nominally elected annually at an AGM held at the weekend conference. As one might imagine in such a small society it was usual to re-elect any trustees who were happy to continue serving and who were supported by the membership.
In 2010 after serving for almost the entire life of the society, the then chairman of the Council Mr Christopher StJ H Daniel MBE and the secretary Mr Graham Aldred stood down. Mr Daniel was thereupon appointed President of the Society. This change at the top necessitated a search to find candidates for these two positions. The other existing trustees volunteered their services for another year. The duly elected persons were Dr FH King (Chairman) and MR CHK Williams (Secretary) both of whom continue to serve today. It had been hoped that the society - and the charity - would thereafter be in safe hands. Sadly a number of members of the society have come to feel that this might not always be entirely the case. Information to the membership is not as free as it was, secrecy seems to be the order of the day and changes have been proposed and made, which subsequently appear to have been ill thought out. Not only that but an earlier commitment made to the Charity Commission on the matter of reserves reporting has been abandoned without informing them. We take the view that these are blunders made by an inexperienced management rather than being anything deliberate but however they come to be triggered they do need to be corrected. A few have but many have not.
The litany of blunders is as worrying for members as it is depressing.
The SunInfo web site is devoted to news and comment about all things related to dialling around the world. As a part of this it mentions issues of concern that arise within BSS from time to time but it cannot easily cover all aspects of this one topic nor keep them in one place. That is the purpose of this blog.
Here we intend to set out the reasons for these concerns in a roughly chronological order. Links will be provided to any fuller explanations that there may be in the SunInfo site or elsewhere.
Now, it is important to stress that this blog, just like SunInfo fully supports BSS and the charity and works for its general good and for an increase in membership. It sets out to offer constructive criticism and to recognise welcome change. We are not in the business of inaccuracies or half truths but sometimes errors or omissions can creep in. If any reader of this blog feels that we have been unfair or quite simply wrong in any way then we shall comment and/or make a correction as soon as we can after being informed. Any such objections or indeed any other comment about this Blog should be sent to the SunInfo webmaster making sure that this Blog is mentioned as the subject of the comment. The letters AT in the above email address are there to wrong-foot spammers. They should be replaced by the appropriate symbol before transmission.
