The New Murrey and Blue blog

In February 2026, as you may recall, several of us resigned our directorships of the Richard III Society. A panel was convened by the Board to investigate our complaints, but the process has proved ineffectual, and after three months we have decided to withdraw from the attempt to make our concerns understood. Whilst we are withdrawing from the procedure of the investigation, we are not withdrawing our complaint. 

Perhaps predictably, in this unprecedented situation the procedure the Society put in place proved inflexible and unfit for purpose. Being a complaint by Directors concerning the behaviour of other Directors, an arbitration process would have been desirable but the Rules didn’t allow for this.

It has been the greatest honour and privilege to have served you all as Directors and Officers of the Society. As many of you know, the six of us have a long history of active membership and contribution to the Society: in fact our combined membership years amount to some 193, of which we are all incredibly proud. There are many lessons to be learned from the breakdown in the present procedure, and we have offered a number of important recommendations, which we are requesting be published in the forthcoming September Bulletin. We very much hope that these important recommendations will be given careful consideration and implemented by the Board of the Society.

With thanks to everyone for your incredibly kind wishes and most generous support during this difficult time; it has meant a very great deal to all of us.

Amanda Geary (former Chair, Communications Manager and member of the Communications Policy Working Party (CPWP)), Philippa Langley MBE (former Deputy Chair, Marketing & PR Officer and member of the CPWP), Kim Harding (former Director and Safeguarding Officer), Joanne Larner (former Director and Facebook Page Administrator), Janine Lawrence (former Director and member of the Bulletin Committee), Cris Reay Connor (former Director).