` WORLD’S FIRST BUSINESS
LEO Computers Society
Registered Charity 1182253
Annual Report: 2021 - 2022
This year covered the 70[th] anniversary of LEO l and it has been a busy and successful time for the Society.
The Lottery funded heritage project in partnership with the Centre for Computing History, Cambridge continues to be a significant part of the Society’s activities. The first major deliverable from this was the LEO film which was made by Boffin Media. We launched this on 30th November 2021 to coincide with the 70[th] Anniversary of the first operational run of LEO l . The pandemic prevented us from holding an in-person event so the launch was shown on Zoom. We had 108 members & friends online to the see the film and tributes to LEO were made by Frank Land & Dame Steve Shirley. The event was very successful, as was the film which has been seen nearly 9,500 times and has received plaudits from all over the world. In July this year Boffin Media won the best Video award from Association of British Science Writers for the film.
An ongoing part of the Heritage Project is the cataloguing and digitising of LEO documentation . Jude Brimmer, our archivist, had been doing a brilliant job but unfortunately had to withdraw on health grounds. We were able to recruit Luke Thorne, who has proved to be an excellent replacement.
We are looking forward to the third project deliverable, the virtual reality display of LEO l , to be ready early next year. Chris & Richard Monk have shown us amazing virtual views of LEO l, its room and the building where it was housed to whet the appetite . Next year will see the end of the National Lottery funded Heritage project so we will have to find ways of building on what we have achieved in the past few years.
On the subject of LEO publicity on film, we had a 5 minute slot in the BBC2 TV series Inside the Factory . It was probably the most widespread publicity we have ever had, being seen by millions of people all around the world.
Inevitably we have lost members this year who have passed away. All those members are sadly missed by the Society of course. Amongst the members who passed this year was Mary Coombs, nee Blood. Mary was a LEO l pioneer, probably the world’s first female business programmer. She had been a fine supporter of LEO and the Society and is sorely missed. Her importance to the history of computing was reflected by obituaries that were published in both the national and computer press and an item about her was included in BBC Radio 4’s Last Word.
We continue to attract new members , including several who have no direct LEO connection. Amongst those is a 20 year old computer student from India, increasing the list of countries where we have members to 28, and a distinguished American computer scientist. We are delighted to welcome both of them and all the other new members who have joined this year.
As I said last year, the pandemic encouraged us to introduce Zoom forums . This year we have had 399 people from 10 countries attending the forums, an increase of about 20% from last year. We usually have a speaker with a relevant topic to discuss, including visits to computer museums, to start the forums. If you would like to hear from a specific speaker or a discussion about a specific topic, do let us know.
The pandemic has also made it difficult to run Reunions. This year we planned to run an already postponed Reunion on Sunday, 10[th] April . Unfortunately we found that there weren’t enough members willing to travel into London and meet people to make a Reunion viable. We decided to book the room at the back of The Queens Head, the LEO and Lyons pub near the site of Cadby Hall for a smaller scale event. Neville Lyons had brought some Lyons memorabilia and we gave away pens and LEO badges. Around 30 people were there including members from Canada and Elisabetta Mori from Italy. There was a buffet lunch and everybody seemed to enjoy the informal get-together. We may repeat the event next year.
As many of you will know we have been trying for some years to revive CLEO, the LEO lll programming language. We are still hopeful of finding a magnetic tape with a CLEO compiler on it. Sadly it is very much a long shot. Recently a team has been set up under the chairmanship of Professor Tony Bryant and including David Holdsworth, the compiler reviver, and a few more people with CLEO knowledge. Their objective is to try and recreate CLEO taking advantage of modern compiler design tools.
I am delighted to report that Elisabetta Mori has been awarded her PhD. Elisabetta was awarded the David Tresman Caminer Postgraduate Scholarship at Middlesex University in 2016 as a doctoral researcher to investigate the social, political and business circumstances that contributed to the success and later decline of LEO Computers, as well as the technical developments and hardware design. The scholarship was funded by the AIT Trust. Inevitably the pandemic caused delays in Elisabetta’s work. As part of her work towards the PhD, Elisabetta has given lectures all over Europe, which have served to spread knowledge about LEO. Elisabetta has also joined the Society’s committee and has made positive contributions to our discussions over the past few years, often from her home in Italy. She has also carried out some Oral History interviews for the Society.
As if we didn’t have enough to do, we decided to publish a second and larger edition of LEO remembered . Our Secretary and newsletter editor, Hilary Caminer , called for articles and had an excellent response. Thanks to a lot of hard work by Hilary and Lisa McGerty , from CCH who been her co editor, the book is now at the printers. . Our friends the AIT Trust again provided funding to assist us with the publishing of the book. We will launch the book on the 28[th] September at a price of £8, I hope you will want to buy a copy of the new enlarged LEO remembered. Thank you Hilary and Lisa for the work you have put in to get the book ready for publication.
We are still carrying out Oral History interviews, which are managed by Mike Tyzack. If we haven’t interviewed you yet let us know. Also we are looking for OH interviewers, and if you are willing to carry out interviews also let us know. Many of the interviews have been carried out by Zoom.
We have had 5 board meetings since the last AGM. We currently have 9 trustees: myself as chairman, Hilary Caminer - secretary, Frank Land OBE – historian who also organizes LEOpedia (the LEO history referencing system), Bernard Behr - treasurer, Neville Lyons – talks & publicity, Neville has built a presentation pack about Lyons and LEO which he will send to any members willing to give a talk. We are grateful to Neville for providing his hard work and research for the benefit of other members John Paschoud - charity issues & social media, Philip Cleary – social media & publicity, John Daines - technical consultant and Vincent Bodsworth – website manager & membership manager, whose technical expertise on Zoom etc. is invaluable to LCS. Additional committee members are Mike Tyzack – oral history organiser, Gloria Guy and Elisabetta Mori . Mike Storey , who has been responsible for Reunions, retired this year. We thank him for the work he did in organising Reunions over many years and also for taking responsibility for sending newsletters etc. to those members who do not have computer facilities
We have vacancies for trustees and would welcome members who would like to get involved. If you are interested let me or any other trustee know, you don’t need to become a trustee initially, you can be co-opted to the committee.
We can look forward to another exciting year in 2023 which will include the launching of the Virtual Reality display of LEO l. This will, as far as I know, be the first time this has been done to tell the story of a historic computer. More awards perhaps?
I hope all members will try and join our Zoom forums if they can. We do try and arrange the timings to suit different time zones.
Peter Byford
Chairman
September 2022
Charity Registration No. 1182253
LEO COMPUTERS SOCIETY
UNAUDITED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS
FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 20 2 1
LEO Computers Society Income & Expenditure 1st January to 31st December 2021
2:28 PM 25/01/22 Accrual Basis
Charity 1182253
| Ordinary Income/Expense Income Bank Interest Received LLoyds Donations & Grants Donations - Heritage Fund Donations - Amazon Europe Core Donations - Gift Aid HMRC Donations - Subscription Appeal Total Donations & Grants Reunion Income Attendance Fee Sales - Merchandise LEO Tote Bag Total Sales - Merchandise Total Reunion Income Sales Book Sales & Publishing Book Sales Postage for Members a/c Total Book Sales & Publishing Total Sales Total Income Cost of Goods Sold Cost of Goods Sold Total COGS GrossIncome Expense Computer & Web Expenses Domain Name Renewal Security Certificate SSL Web Hosting Total Computer & Web Expenses Newsletter/LEO Matters Postage Total Newsletter/LEO Matters Office Expense Postage & Stamps Total Office Expense Oral History & Heritage Project Heritage Project HP Postage Total Heritage Project Oral History OH Postage OH Transcriptions & Secretarial Total Oral History Total Oral History & Heritage Project Presentations and Gifts Gift Total Presentations and Gifts Publishing Postage |
Jan - Dec 21 |
|---|---|
| 1.21 120.00 26.89 505.47 1,170.00 1,822.36 54.00 40.00 40.00 94.00 53.00 36.39 89.39 89.39 |
|
| 2,006.96 35.12 |
|
| 35.12 | |
| 1,971.84 43.15 59.99 86.26 189.40 44.16 44.16 0.85 0.85 13.14 13.14 2.58 556.07 558.65 571.79 39.95 39.95 39.69 |
Page 1
2:28 PM 25/01/22 Accrual Basis
1st January to 31st December 2021
Charity 1182253
LEO Computers Society Income & Expenditure
| Total Publishing Uncategorized Expenses Postage & Stamps - Merchandise Total Uncategorized Expenses Total Expense Net Ordinary Income Net Income for the Year |
Jan - Dec 21 |
|---|---|
| 39.69 6.40 6.40 |
|
| 892.24 | |
| 1,079.60 | |
| 1,079.60 |
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4:42 PM 14/01/22 Accrual Basis
Charity No. 1182253
LEO Computers Society Balance Sheet At 31 December 2021
| ASSETS Current Assets Other Current Assets Prepaid Expense Victory Services Club Total Prepaid Expense Stock LEO Remembered Stock - Other Total Stock Total Other Current Assets Cash at bank and in hand Lloyds Bank - Current a/c Lloyds Bank - Savings a/c Total Cash at bank and in hand Total Current Assets NET CURRENT ASSETS TOTAL ASSETS LESS CURRENT LIABILI... NET ASSETS Capital and Reserves Accumulated Funds Restricted Funds Restricted Fund - LEO Plaque Restricted Funds-Preservation Heritage Project Oral History Total Restricted Funds-Preservat... Total Restricted Funds Unrestricted Funds Total Accumulated Funds Retained Income Income for the Year Available funds |
31 Dec 21 250.00 250.00 50.72 829.09 1 879.81 1,129.81 6,907.48 12,240.83 19,148.31 20,278.12 20,278.12 20,278.12 20,278.12 1,167.57 4,014.07 7,346.51 11,360.58 12,528.15 7,749.97 20,278.12 -1,079.60 2 1,079.60 20,278.12 |
|---|---|
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LEO Computers Society Balance Sheet
| LEO | Computers Society | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 4:42 | PM |
||
| 14/01/22 | Balance Sheet | ||
| Accrual Basis | At 31 December 2021 | Charity No. 1182253 | |
| 1. | Mugs 376.26 | ||
| Tote Bags 452.83 | |||
| ---------- | |||
| 829.09 | |||
| ====== | |||
| 2. | Year end Adjustment | Debit Credit | |
| Retained Income | 1079.60 | ||
| Restricted Funds: Oral History - Donation 120.00 | |||
| Restricted Funds: Oral History - Gift Aid 24.00 | |||
| Restricted Funds: Oral Histrory - Expenses 571.79 | |||
| Unrestricted Funds: | 1507.09 | ||
| ------------ ------------ | |||
| 1651.09 1651.09 | |||
| ======= ======= |
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