We held the 28th AGM in the Pall Mall Room of the Army & Navy Club (”The Rag”)( on 10th January 2023. It was chaired by Baroness Symons, Chairman of the British Egyptian Society. She was accompanied by the Vice Chairman, Professor Magdy Ishak Hanna, the Treasurer, Mrs Jennette Bradbury and the Secretary.
Maybe it was because of the quality of the speaker to follow but we had a pleasing turnout. Lady Symons spoke of the sad loss of our Trustee and sponsor, Dr Assem Allam (an obituary follows) and then summarised events since the last AGM. These had included the Sir Michael Weir Lecture, delivered By Mr Ahmed Abdel Gheit (Secretary General of the Arab League), The reception in January which welcomed the new Ambassador, H E Mr Sherif Kamel and Mrs Heba Ismail, and announced the winner of the 1st Peter Mackenzie Smith Book Prize (“The Burled” by Peter Hessler) The evening had been sponsored by Dr Ahmed El Mokadem. We held an IFTAR in April, launched the book on our 2019 Conference (“The Egyptian Revolution of 1919” edited by Professor Robert Springborg and Dr Hisham Hellyer) in September, visited the Ashmolean in Oxford to see their Egyptian Collection and saw also the Tutankhamun Exhibition in the Bodleian, and, in December. held a film evening, jointly with the Arab British Chamber of Commerce, where we showed “Curfew” which starred the Egyptian actress and civil rites activist Mrs Elham Shahin. Mrs Shahin and her colleague Ms Hala Sarhan held a Q and A after the showing. The BES sponsored their visit to London. The event had been organised by our new Board Member, Dr, Khalid Ali.
At the AGM we bade farewell to Dr Neal Spencer, Keeper of the Ancient Egypt and Sudan Collection at the British Museum (and welcomed Mr Daniel Antoine, his successor as Keeper to our Board). Mr Omar Massoud, a former Treasurer, stepped down also as did the writer and broadcaster Dr. Chris Naunton. All were thanked for their considerable contributions of the Society. We welcomed to the board Dr. Ali plus Mrs Suzie Oweiss, the Education Consultant, Ms Elizabeth White, the current Head of the British Council in Cairo, the Nutritionist, Ms Alia Shoukry Mahmoud and the former Head of the National Bank of Egypt in London, Mr Yasser Ibrahim.
It was agreed that the ‘officers’ could carry out the necessary day to day business required to run the Society.
The AGM concluded at 6.35.
At 7pm we welcomed the Broadcaster, writer and Journalist and the present BBC Security Correspondent, Mr Frank Gardner.
