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Farewell to Briony Watson

Farewell to Briony Watson

Briony Watson has been the familiar and friendly face of the RSAA for most members for many years. She retires at the end of this year after nearly twenty years with the Society. Her last working day will be 18 December. She will be greatly missed by everyone.

Briony began working for the RSAA in January 2005. At that time it shared premises in Belgrave Square, where it had been based since 1985. Those who visited those offices in the mid-2000s may recall Briony’s spectacular tomato plant.

In the subsequent nineteen years, Briony worked with four different Secretaries in five different offices. She began her time with the Society keeping its accounts in manual ledgers and its membership records on 3×5 card indexes well after these methods had been abandoned elsewhere. The Society’s present, largely automated systems, owe much to her endurance through experiments with five different membership databases and three different websites. Despite, or perhaps because of, all the upheaval, geographic and technological, Briony became the soul of the organisation, its institutional memory, its supplier of greetings cards and its welcoming face to all who came into contact with her. It is for that above all that we will remember her with great affection.

We wish her a long and happy retirement filled with lots of painting and exhibition visits!

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