The British Institute in Eastern Africa

BIEA news, updates and announcements

New Staff at BIEA: The last few months have seen a number of staff changes at BIEA. In addition to a change of Director and London Secretary (see below), Mrs Susan Mwangi (Research and Publications) left us in November following a process of restructuring. Susan's work at BIEA was very much appreciated and we wish her all the best for the future. In January we appointed a new office secretary and bookkeeper, Mrs Janet Njoroge whose job will be to assist our Office Manager, Mr Humphrey Mathenge, as he takes on new responsibilities. From April 1st we will also employ a new IT manager, Mr John Arum, in a joint position with IFRA.

Change of London Secretary: During December Mrs Jeanie Moyo retired from BIEA following many years dedicated service. We wish her all the very best in her future endeavours and warmly thank her for her commitment and dedication. Jeanie was replaced in January by Jane Gillespie (biea@britac.ac.uk) who will work for BIEA on a part time bassis. We lookforward to working with Jane and hope that members will get to know her well also.

Change of Director: The Director, Dr Justin Willis, left BIEA in early september to resume his teaching post at the University of Durham. Dr Willis oversaw many changes at BIEA, including the construction of our new building, and all the staff wish him the very best for the future. No doubt Dr Willis will be back at BIEA as a visiting researcher in the near future.

Dr Willis has been succeeded by Prof. Dave Anderson who will hold the position of Acting Director for one year while on sabbatical from the University of Oxford. As a longstanding council member Professor Anderson is well acquainted with BIEA and is looking forward to the challenges of the year ahead! Professor Anderson will be based in the UK but will make a number of visits to Nairobi througout the year.

Conferences and workshops: BIEA is currently involved in a number of conferences and workshops. Please visit our 'public events' pages for further details.

We are very pleased to announce that the new BIEA offices are now open! Based in the same compound as our old offices, the new building offers much improved research facilities. Highlights include a larger library, large seminar/lecture room, new computing room, increased desk space and storage, and wireless internet access throughout. In addition, the old office building has been converted into a substantial guesthouse for visiting researchers. For more information on the new building and guesthouse go to our Nairobi research facilities page.

Membership subscriptions for 2010 are now due. Please subscribe ASAP to ensure the timely arrival of your copies of Azania and/or JEAS. Both journals will now be published three times annually in March, July and November. Please click here for membership details and to subscribe online via PayPal.

**Membership Updates**

In order to improve communication with members we are currently updating the details in our membership database. If you feel that our record of your details may be inaccurate please forward updates to office@biea.ac.uk In the future we hope to principally communicate with members via email and we therefore recommend that you ensure we have an up-to-date email address for you. From January 2009 our newsletter BIEA News will be distributed electronically via email.

Click for BIEA Newsletter online