We have finally managed to arrange outings for the days between our conference and Who Do You Think You Are? Live and we hope that many of you will want to take the opportunity to join with fellow one-namers on these days. Please be aware that we have to provide these venues with final numbers by 1st March so book early using the links in the accompanying e.mail. If you have any problems booking in this way please contact conference@guild-dev.org

Please add all trips that you wish to attend before completing checkout.

Monday 4 April Guided Bus Tour of Historic Birmingham

A 1½ hour guided open-top bus tour of the historic sites of Birmingham. This will leave from the conference venue. Either stop off in the city centre and make your own way home afterwards or return on the bus.

£10 per person.

Please note that if we do not get sufficient interest in this trip we shall have to cancel. As we will be proceeding with this trip on the basis of bookings received, we regret that those who book will have to pay and it will not be possible to cancel.

Tuesday 5 April The Black Country Museum

The Black Country Museum, Tipton Road, Dudley DY1 4SQ (www.bclm.co.uk) is one of the finest and largest open-air museums in the United Kingdom, set in twenty six acres. They have recreated a Black Country community at the height of its industrial past, complete with residents and trams to ride. There are things being made and stories to hear. The Museum is about 25 miles from the conference venue. We will be leaving the NEC Hilton in private cars at 9.50am and will arrange car sharing during the conference, or alternatively meet us at the Museum at 10.45am.

£12 adults

£10 senior citizens

Wednesday 6 April Sarehole Mill

Sarehole Mill is a 250 year old working watermill famous for its association with the author J R R Tolkien (http://www.birminghammuseums.org.uk/sarehole) The Mill is situated at Cole Bank Road, Birmingham B13 0BD nine miles from the conference venue. Cole Bank Road (B4146) is off the Stratford Road (A34). We shall be leaving the NEC Hilton in private cars at 11.30am and will arrange car sharing during the conference; or alternatively meet us at the Museum at 11.50am.

£7 per person. Numbers for this outing are restricted, please book early.

 

I’ve been advised by our IT team that our website will be unavailable for approximately two hours between 6am GMT and 8am on Tuesday, 26th January.  Our web-hosting company, Krystal, will be performing an upgrade to server hardware.  The outage includes the main Guild site at guild-dev.org including those parts of the site accessed through the Members Room, the WW1 site at ww1.guild-dev.org and our email system. Emails sent during this time will be placed in a queue for later delivery. 

If there’s any variation in the actual experience beyond these expectations, stay tuned to Facebook and our Rootsweb mailing list for updates.

2016 Conference

While writing, I just want to note that a link in my newsletter to the conference web page didn’t work properly.  If you’d like to come to our conference in Birmingham, you can book a place using the form linked from this page: https://guild-dev.org/the-37th-guild-conference-agm-2016/.  

For any non-member reading this on our Facebook page, please note that you are welcome too!

Paul

The Guild of One-Name Studies has reached another membership milestone. In 2015 the Guild of One-Name Studies broke all its previous memberships records by recruiting some 418 new members with a further 15 previous Guild members re-joining the Guild during the year. A total of 433 new members. This milestone follows a very successful year for the Guild of One-Name Studies in 2015 when the Guild achieved its highest membership ever – some 2,847 members.

Since the 1st January 2015 some 418 members joined the Guild of One-Name Studies, 233 were from the UK, 90 from the US, 14 from New Zealand, 43 from Australia, 16 from Canada and 9 from the Republic of Ireland. The remainder were from various other countries. 44% of the new members were from non-UK regions, which is a valuable step towards increased worldwide membership for the Guild. There were also 15 returning members: 9 from the UK, 3 from the US, 1 from Australia and 2 from Canada. The Guild now has 2,847 members spread across the world, studying over 8,700 individual surnames.
The continued increase in the Guild’s membership every year since the Guild was founded in 1979 (an achievement not many Family History organisations have managed) is a testament to the popularity of the Guild and the benefits it offers to its members – as the following table shows:

New members per month:

Year	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Total	Average
2015	27	22	44	95	29	29	28	24	37	29	22	32	418	34.8
2014	34	64	14	15	10	21	11	15	21	21	27	30	283	23.6
2013	17	53	25	24	12	9	19	18	27	20	15	6	245	20.4

Details of all the Guild facilities can be found at:

http:\\www.guild-dev.org/about-the-guild/membership-benefits
where you can find out:

• more about undertaking a One-Name Study
• the benefits of joining the Guild of One-Name Studies, and the assistance members of the Guild can provide to anyone researching their family history on any of the 8,700-plus names currently being researched.

Cliff Kemball, the Guild’s Publicity Officer, said today:

This is yet another significant milestone for the Guild of One-Name Studies and is a testament to the continued development of the Guild internationally and the benefits membership provides. We hope that this trend continues into 2016 and beyond and reaffirms the Guild as the world’s leading organisation for One-Name Studies.”