Staff were greeted to a shock this morning upon the discovery that our grand Presidents’ Board, located in the entrance hall, had vanished! Initial reports pointed to daring heist by a Past President who had recently suggested the board would look good in his new kitchen, but after thorough interrogation the suspect cleared his name, confessing that he ‘had only stole a biscuit from the Newsroom but not the Presidents Board’ as it ‘wouldn’t fit in my pocket’…. The mystery continued!
The board -a who’s who of Liverpool life during the Club’s existence, from Roscoe to Doctors Currie and Duncan, to Chavasse and in more recent times Colonel ‘Paddy’ Bryson to Elizabeth Christie (HH Judge Steel) just to name half a dozen- has been a discussion point within the Institution as of late as following our current President, David Roscoe’s name being gold leafed into Athenaeum history there was no more room for future Presidents. What are we going to do next? Shut up shop after 222 years? Not a chance. Perhaps commission a thinner board to be made to go alongside the current board? Hmm, maybe. What about commissioning a new similar board? I suspect the President’s would look a little lonely for a few years before it began to be populated. For a moment, however, the question what were we doing next was overshadowed by ‘what are we going to do NOW?’
The solution to what we are doing now and next conveniently was the same, and it lay at our reception in the form of a receipt for ‘the collection of one honour board’ from Master Craftsman, Neil Wyn Jones. Proprietors may remember this name as he is the gentleman who built the Monsarrat Cabinet located in the aforementioned room. The Presidents’ Board thankful had not become the spoils of a daring raid on the premises, but in fact is on its way to a workshop for some magic to take place before it returns ahead of the AGM on July 3rd, where our third female President, Dr Gaynor Bresnen, will be added to the board, the very same board that the names of all our Presidents before her reside!