EXTRAORDINARY HOUSE

Memorandum to Members

From: The Secretary
To: All Members, Former Members and Persons Continuing to Describe Themselves as Members
Subject: Public Access to the Archive

Members will be concerned to learn that selected portions of the Archive are to be made accessible to the public.

The Archive of Extraordinary House has traditionally been closed to non-members, most members and, during certain accounting periods, the Treasurer.

This arrangement served the House perfectly well until the commencement of the present reconstruction, when the Club’s auditors, bankers and insurers separately requested evidence of its history, authority, assets, liabilities and continued existence.

The Committee supplied what it considered sufficient.

The auditors described the accounts as incomplete. The bankers questioned whether the signatures belonged to living persons. The insurers expressed particular interest in the loss of the former House and asked why the silver had apparently been removed shortly before the incident.

Following extensive correspondence, none of which improved matters, the Committee was advised that a single accessible record should be established as a condition of continuing the reconstruction.

Selected minutes, notices, registers, correspondence and recovered papers will therefore be published in The Archive.

The Committee wishes to make the following points clear:

1. Publication of a document does not confirm its accuracy.
2. The appearance of a name in a membership book does not necessarily establish that the person was admitted, remained admitted or ever existed.
3. No account of the destruction of the former House should be treated as definitive.
4. The publication of an unpaid invoice does not constitute acceptance of the debt.
5. Documents attributed to former officers of the House may represent their personal opinions, private arrangements or attempts to leave the country.

Former members, their descendants and other persons possessing House papers, portraits, objects, keys, account books or relevant recollections are invited to contact the Secretary.

Creditors may do so through the usual channels.

The Archive will remain publicly accessible for as long as the Club’s professional advisers consider necessary. The Committee is confident that this period will be brief. Its professional advisers have declined to offer a similar assurance.

Members are reminded that discussion of material released through the Archive remains subject to the ordinary rules of discretion, good taste and plausible deniability.

The Committee regrets the inconvenience caused by this entirely avoidable degree of transparency.

By order of the Committee

The Secretary
Extraordinary House

The Committee remains committed to transparency wherever contractually unavoidable.