AFU annual meeting and premises

On Tuesday February 25 the AFU board gathered for the annual meeting. The most important decision during the meeting was to readopt the foundation bylaws from 1980. The reason for this is explained in the quotation from the Annual Report 2013 below and also the legal problems of changing our name. The AFU board now has the following members: Håkan Blomqvist (chairman), Clas Svahn (vice chairman), Anders Liljegren (treasurer and personnel manager), Leif Åstrand (deputy member).

Board meeting at AFU. From left Håkan Blomqvist, Leif Åstrand, Tobias Lindgren, Carl-Anton Mattson, Clas Svahn, Anders Liljegren

"Donations of very extensive collections of forteana, ancient mysteries, parapsychology, paranormal phenomena, folklore, spiritualism, esoterica and other borderland subjects have for several years initiated a discussion within the board of eventually changing the name of the foundation to present a more accurate description of the wide scope of our collections and work. We wanted to keep our well known acronym AFU but give it a new and more inclusive meaning.

In April the board decided that our new name shall be Archives for the Unexplained. Problems arose when we asked for authorization of the new name from the Östergötland County Administration Board. Changing the name for a foundation proved to be more complicated than we had anticipated and we were also informed that foundation bylaws cannot be altered except under very special circumstances. A decision was taken to readopt the bylaws as originally written in 1980. As of this writing the Östergötland County Administration Board has not finally authorized our new name but we hope to receive an answer in the near future."

Before the board meeting we unpacked the latest donation to AFU, the Sune Hjorth archive, collected by Clas Svahn and Carl-Anton Mattsson as I mentioned in a recent blog entry. Many new contactee, conspiracy and new age books added to the AFU collection and also some very interesting correspondence from a.o. Immanuel Velikovsky.

Part of the Sune Hjorth archive unpacked

On Tuesday nine people from AFU visited a place called Hallarna in Norrköping, an old industrial complex now transformed into a center for cultural activities and organizations. We wanted to inspect the premises as a possible location for the entire AFU collection. Administrator and leader for this project is Pelle Filipsson who guided our group in this large building.

Our guide in Hallarna, Pelle Filipsson

Anders Liljegren studying an exhibition of forbidden books at Hallarna. Perhaps the next exhibition could be Forbidden Science...

Whether it will be possible för AFU to move to this premise is entirely dependent upon the economical situation. A more secure economy is necessary for a move to one large premise. We will continue our discussions with Pelle Filipsson and he will keep us posted on new developments regarding this cultural project.

Clas Svahn in front of a large painting at Hallarna