2019 Annual Report
I regret to say that this has not been a good first year for HiPSA. Our paid-up membership has continued the decline in numbers which began in the 2010s, notwithstanding several imaginative initiatives to arrest this fall. Today we have 607 fully paid-up members, 45 fewer than a year ago. Another 154 are in ‘suspended animation’, not having paid their subs for the last two years. In part this decrease is because a number of older members decided to [...]
2017 Annual Report
Whichever doctor said that when you reach the venerable age of 98, you should be taking things easy was clearly not thinking of the VRS, for the 98th year of our existence, which has just ended, has been a very active – almost hyperactive – year. Our administrators, Rolf Proske and Sandra Commerford, the six members of the Executive Committee, and all 16 members of the Council know from personal experience the extent of such hyperactivity. So I thank them [...]
2018 Annual Report
2018 was a year marked by culmination and transformation. CULMINATION because we reached our century, celebrating this in a number of memorable ways: by organizing a UCT Summer School course, ‘Witnesses to South African history’, convened by Elizabeth van Heyningen, which shop-windowed the contribution to the writing of South Africa’s history by our publications; by publishing two volumes in the year to bring the number of volumes produced under our imprint to 100 (or 106 if we include Jan [...]
Newsletter 56 – October 2019
AGM and LAUNCH OF 2019 VOLUME Our AGM will be held at 17h30 on Wednesday 27 November 2019 at Ravenswood House, 110 Hatfield Street, Gardens, Cape Town. Directions and a map are provided below. For the use of this elegant venue we are once again indebted to the generosity of its owner and HiPSA member, Patrick Esnouf. At this AGM an election will be held for a new Council to serve for the period 2019-2022. Nominations to serve on this [...]
Minutes of the 100th Annual General Meeting (Nov 2019)
Minutes of the 100th Annual General Meeting of Historical Publications Southern Africa - HiPSA (previously the Van Riebeeck Society for the Publication of Southern African Historical Documents - VRS) held at Ravenswood House, Hatfield Street, Cape Town at 17h30 on Wednesday 27th November 2019. 1. Welcome and apologies The Chair, Prof Howard Phillips, welcomed the members present, and explained the order of proceedings. The AGM would be followed by the launch of this year’s annual volume, Indoda Ebisithanda (The [...]
Eeufees
Die Vereniging het in Augustus 2018 honderd jaar oud geword. Sedert sy stigting in 1918 het dit feitlik elke jaar ʼn volume gepubliseer van oorspronklike Suid-Afrikaanse historiese dokumente, noukeurig geredigeer. Die strewe van die stigters was om deur die stigting ʼn besef tuis te bring van die historiese wortels van die eerste nuwe Suid-Afrika, die Unie van Suid-Afrika, wat in 1910 tot stand gekom het. Nou, in die era van die tweede nuwe Suid-Afrika, streef die Vereniging na dieselfde doel, [...]
Lecture on president Steyn volume during the Stellenbosch Woordfees
On 17 March 2018, in a somewhat cramped Protea bookshop on a hot Stellenbosch morning Francois Cleophas, Elizabeth van Heyningen, Chris van der Merwe and Con de Wet presented a thoroughly interesting talk on the 2017 volume, Selections from the Letters of President M.T. Steyn, 1904-1910. There was a small but very engaged audience present. A call to join the VRS was made, and each chair had a pamphlet on it. We'll see whether there will be any new members [...]
Celebrations in Gauteng
The Society hosted a two-part celebration in Gauteng on 10 and 11 October 2018, in collaboration with our joint hosts, the History Departments of the University of Pretoria and the University of Johannesburg. Our guest of honour and keynote speaker at both gatherings was Professor Archie Dick, Head of the Department of Information Science at the University of Pretoria and an international expert on the history of reading and books, who reflected on the history of the Society and offered [...]
Celebrations in Cape Town
A series of lectures under the title of "The Van Riebeeck Society and the making of Southern African History" was presented at the UCT Summer School during May 2018 in celebration of the Society's Centenary. For more information click here to go to the Activities Page. The Society held a two-part, two-venue celebration on 29 August 2018, exactly 100 years since in was founded. The first part was at the National Library of South Africa in Cape Town where [...]