Presented by the President, Dr David Reid, at the Annual General Meeting, at the National Museum and Galleries of Wales, Cardiff, on 27 February, 1999

First of all I would like to thank Ian Killeen very much indeed for arranging this meeting on Biogeography and Distribution of European Land and Freshwater Molluscs, which provides us with the opportunity for our AGM. Also my thanks to the National Museum and Galleries of Wales for providing us with this excellent venue.

Membership of The Society

At the end of 1998 the membership of The Society stood at 306, of which 10 were new members, while 3 had resigned, 1 was deceased and 8 had lapsed. We cannot ignore this continuing small decline in our membership, that has fallen by almost 6% since 1995. An important initiative for publicising The Society among students has been our annual Young Malacologists' Forum. I must urge all of you to encourage new members, especially among students and young malacologists, who are the future of our discipline. Do remember that student membership is a very reasonable £22.

Meetings

The Society has organized three meetings over the past 12 months. In addition, many members were involved in the World Congress of Malacology, held from 25 to 30 July, in Washington, D.C.

The 105th AGM was combined with a meeting on 'Feeding and Foraging Strategies in Molluscs', held on 25 March at the Ecology Centre of the University of Sunderland, and organized by Mark Davies. Six speakers presented talks on a wide range of molluscs, from slugs to cephalopods, and the role of molluscan predators and grazers in oceanic, intertidal, terrestrial and freshwater environments.

The Young Malacologists' Forum has become an annual event, and was once again arranged by Alex Ball at the Natural History Museum in London. This year's Forum took place on 24 September, and attracted 14 speakers from seven countries. The quality of the talks and posters this year was most impressive, and deserved a larger audience. This is a very worthwhile event, providing an insight into the diverse range of research topics being pursued by the new generation of malacologists. It is also a chance for students to meet specialists in other fields, and an opportunity for them to glimpse the facilities of the collections and library that are available at the Museum. To encourage informal discussion wine and snacks were provided after the meeting. Alex has provided a report on this highly successful meeting in issue number 32 of the Bulletin. Next year's Forum will be held on 18 November.

Our third event was an evening meeting on the topic of 'Predatory Molluscs', jointly hosted by the Linnean Society of London, and held in their rooms at Burlington House on 21 January. This was arranged by Hugh Jones, assisted by Elizabeth Platts. A large audience heard talks by four speakers, and abstracts are printed in issue 32 of the Bulletin. The evening closed with a wine reception in the library, very kindly provided by the Linnean Society.

I would like to thank all those who organized or assisted with arrangements for these three successful meetings.

The highlight of our programme during the coming year will be the three-day meeting 'Biology and Evolution of the Bivalvia', to be held in Cambridge from 14 to 17 September. This has already attracted an international group of eminent participants, and the proceedings will be published as a volume to rank alongside that from our last major international meeting, the 1993 centenary of The Society.

Publications

The Journal of Molluscan Studies continues to maintain its place as one of the foremost malacological periodicals, thanks to the expert editorship of John Taylor. The four parts of volume 64 comprised 501 pages and 51 papers. The provenance of the papers published (address country of first author) remains dominantly European, with 46% from continental western Europe, 20% from the United Kingdom and Ireland, followed by 6% each from USA and Canada, South Africa and South America, and a further 16% from the former Soviet Union and eastern Europe, Japan, SE Asia, Australia, Africa, India,

Oman and Israel. During 1998, 91 papers were submitted for publication and around 40% of these were rejected for various reasons. The Editor would like to express his thanks for the continued support and efforts of the Associate Editors-David Brown, Elizabeth Harper, Peter Mordan, Elizabeth Platts and David Reid.

The Society's Bulletin continues to be excellently produced by Stuart Bailey, and appears in February and August. I thank both John Taylor and Stuart Bailey for their hard work on The Society's publications, and all who have contributed to them, whether as authors or referees.

I would remind you that The Society's World Wide Web site is an important source of information about The Society, its meetings and its publications, and includes a complete reproduction of the latest issue of the Bulletin and links to other malacological sites. I thank Mark Davies for his hard work in producing and managing our web site. The site has attracted no less than 3000 hits during the past year.

The Society's Awards

The Society makes three Awards each year: the Annual Award for an initial contribution to malacology, the Sir Charles Maurice Yonge Award for an outstanding paper on bivalves published in the Journal, and the Centenary Research Grants for malacological research. The announcements of the winners of the 1998 Awards will be made later in the proceedings. I would ask you all please to publicize our Awards, especially the Annual Award and the Research Grants, which are aimed particularly at students.

The Officers and Council

Finally, on behalf of the whole Society I would like to express my warmest thanks to all those Officers and Members of the Council who have assisted with the smooth running of The Society over the past year, especially to those Council Members who are retiring: Vice-President Ian Killeen, and Ordinary Members Robert Cameron and Mark Davies. In particular, I thank those long-serving Officers of The Society, our Treasurer Dai Roberts and Secretary Georges Dussart, for all their continuing hard work and dedication.

Dr David G. Reid