I have been a member of the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society for just about ten years now: this will perhaps shock some regulars who, probably, expect me to blowing the Benjamin Britten trumpet, for they famously didn't get along, though RVW was always kinder about Britten than Britten was ever able to be about RVW. But there it is: I have been a member in good standing for a decade and on two continents. I've thus long enjoyed receiving a thrice-yearly copy of their Journal in the post, the extremely high-quality society magazine-newsletter.
In a twist of fate that I certainly wasn't expecting, their long-time editor announced his pending retirement a few months ago and a call went out in the last issue of the Journal for a replacement editor... which no-one responded to. An email plea then went out to members for someone to volunteer to step up to the plate... and I therefore put up my hand, fully expecting 50 other far-more-qualified editors and RVW aficionados to do likewise and thus to never really hear from them again, except perhaps for a polite email of rejection.
Turns out I'm more pessimistic than I have any right to be and I shall shortly be taking up the post of Editor of the Journal of the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society! It's as much as a shock to me as anyone, but it's something I am really keen to do well. Wish me luck!
The workload is, apparently, light (we shall see!) and therefore certainly not a full-time occupation. Nevertheless, I rather suspect that my posts here may decline in number and the attention I can pay to my three software projects may diminish somewhat, too. We shall see: fortunately, all three of them have recently had updates which, if not quite perfecting the programs, nevertheless took each of them close to about as much capable functionality as I could possible conceive. Anyway: it's just a heads-up that my attention is going to be focussed elsewhere very shortly.
I am semi-obliged now, I think, to recommend to all readers that they should themselves become RVW Society members: membership costs as little as £15 per annum, depending on age and global location 🙂