Present: The President (Sir Roderick Catchpole), the Secretary, and twenty-nine Fellows.

Apologies: Three. All three from Lt-Col. Edmund Colquhoun (#00042), submitted on three separate grounds and from three separate addresses. The Chair acknowledged each individually.

Minutes of the previous meeting: Read. Accepted with two amendments, both proposed by the Secretary, both regarding the Society's own newly-established email address.

Item 1. The Society's electronic mail address. The Secretary reported that the address, established at the previous meeting, had received seventeen pieces of correspondence in the intervening fortnight. Of these, three were judged to be from Fellows. Of these three, one was a complaint regarding the address itself. The Chair invited the Society to consider the address.

Item 1, continued. Debate. Mr Crispin Fairweather (#00391) proposed that the address be retained, on the ground that it had now been established. The motion was seconded. Lt-Col. Colquhoun (in absentia, by letter, by post) opposed the motion on the ground that the address contained a hyphen which the Society had not authorised. Mr Fairweather observed that the hyphen was a feature of the address itself and could not be authorised separately. Lt-Col. Colquhoun, in a second letter, conceded the point but observed, in a third letter, that the address contained a full stop where a comma would have been more elegant. The Chair declined to rule on the third letter, on the ground that it had not yet been opened.

Item 1, concluded. The motion to retain the address was carried, 18–9, with two abstentions. The abstentions were Mr Quibb (#00316) and Mrs Quinch (#00404a), each on separate written objections later filed.

Item 2. The Society's website. The Secretary reported that no website had been established. The Society confirmed by acclamation that none should be. (See subsequent minutes, EGM XVI.)

Item 3. The Society's standing rebuke to the use of "online". The standing rebuke was drafted, debated, amended, redrafted, and adopted. The text appears at Schedule C.

Any Other Business. A Fellow inquired as to whether email addresses required apostrophes in possession (e.g., "the Society's email"). The matter was deferred to the Apostrophe Sub-committee, which had not met since 1979.

Date of next meeting: Tuesday, 7th December, 7.00 p.m.