General Meeting of 4 December 2019

A general meeting of the Société des Amis de Marcel Proust was held on Wednesday 4 December 2019 at the Collège de France.

The general meeting voted unanimously, among those present and represented, in favour of the revision of the association's statutes, which was on the agenda.
This revision has the following aims:

- to increase (from 18 to 21) the number of members of the board of directors (the number of directors remains a multiple of three, as directors are elected in thirds);

- to strengthen the statutory basis of the Bulletin and its editorial committee;

- to allow, in the event of urgency, deliberations of the board of directors by electronic means;

- to remove obsolete and unapplied provisions.

The association's missions remain unchanged, but they have been clarified in a slightly amended version of Article 2:

1) To keep members informed of Proustian news and research, in France and abroad; to encourage scholarly and popularising work devoted to Marcel Proust;

2) To operate, preserve and maintain, with the possible assistance of public or private partners, the Maison de Tante Léonie – Musée Marcel Proust, located in Illiers-Combray, of which it is the owner, and to fulfil the obligations attached to the « Musée de France » designation received by this establishment;

3) To preserve and enrich, with the possible assistance of public or private partners, the collections of the Maison de Tante Léonie – Musée Marcel Proust, through the acquisition of manuscripts, photographs, films, videos, paintings, drawings, furniture and objects relating to Marcel Proust, his work, his biography or the people he knew;

4) To publish a periodical review, where applicable in the form of an annual Bulletin, and other works (conference proceedings, exhibition catalogues, etc.), possibly in co-publication;

5) To organise lectures of a literary or popular educational character, and visits to the places described by Marcel Proust, notably in Illiers-Combray.

The new statutes are available by clicking on this link.

As these were approved during the session, the agenda of the general meeting could be supplemented to put to the vote the election of three new directors.

The following were elected as directors of the association, unanimously among those present and represented:

• Mme Elodie Massouline, conservation officer for the Département d'Eure-et-Loir, who knows our collections well and has already been collaborating with the association for several months, under an agreement concluded with the Département (Mme Massouline was thus involved in organising the exhibition « Marcel Proust, prix Goncourt 1919 » and in the case files for the pre-emption requests we made in 2018 and 2019);
  
  
• M. François de Ricqlès, auctioneer, former chairman and chief executive of Christie's France, a longstanding member and patron of our association;
  
  
• M. Eric Unger, IT manager in the banking sector, former First Prize for piano at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, a longstanding member and patron of our association, to whom we also owe the redesign of our website, which is constantly evolving.