530 The Fifty-Fifth General Meeting. 



" The Society has recently paid from the Museum Enlargement 

 Fund, £150 to Mr. W. Reward Bell of the £200 advanced by him 

 without interest for enlargement purposes some years ago. The 

 architect (Mr. Ponting) has also been paid a long-standing debt of 

 £50, and your Committee would like to take this opportunity of 

 acknowledging the consideration which he has extended to the 

 Society and to express a hope that in the not far distant future 

 at least a part of the plan which he prepared for a Museum may 

 be carried out. This latter sum has been borrowed from the Life 

 Membership Fund, to be repaid from the Museum Enlargement 

 Fund. It has been paid since the accounts for 1907 were closed, 

 as is also the case with £50 of the amount paid to Mr. Bell. 



" The details of the various funds appear in the balance sheet 

 printed in the June number of the Magazine. 



"Ifembers. — The number of Members on the books on June 26th, 

 1908, was eighteen Life Members and three hundred and eighty- 

 two Annual Subscribers, a total of four hundred, against three 

 hundred and eighty-six at the corresponding period last year, with 

 twenty-two Societies and Institutions with whom publications are 

 exchanged. There have been four losses by death and fifteen by 

 resignation during the year, while thirty-two new Members have 

 joined the Society. 



" Museum. — The number of visitors to the Museum (exclusive 

 of Members) was eight hundred and ninety-seven — this in- 

 cludes classes from neighbouring schools to the number of 

 one hundred and fifty-one — against eight hundred and sixty-nine 

 of the preceding year. Mrs. Ward, the caretaker, has resigned, 

 and Mrs. Willis has been appointed in her place. The Committee, 

 after careful consideration of all the circumstances, decided that 

 the Society should no longer let the house in Long Street, which 

 adjoins the Museum, to an independent tenant, but that the care- 

 taker should reside on the premises. The Museum required 

 enlargement, and the scheme now carried out annexes the ground- 

 floor rooms of the dwelling-house, giving access from the present 

 Museum. The cost of this improvement- is about £75. The 

 alterations, now completed, add greatly to the accommodation 



