Twenty-One Years of the ACS

also feared looming threats from corporation tax and/or VAT.It was probably fair comment that the ACS at this stage would never have won business school prizes for its financial awareness or its working methods, though these improved shortly afterwards in late 1981 when the rules were overhauled and provision was made for an official auditor to be appointed for the first time.As other issues, which need not be pursued,came into the picture, the relationship between Miller and some other committee men became more and moresoured. Predictably Robert Brooke remained closest to Miller and both resigned from the committee as 1980ended.They rescinded their decision in timefora heated committee meeting in February, 1981,when everything came to a head. When asked. Miller admitted that he had deliberately withheld the manuscript for the Scottish cricketers' booklet he had been due to deliver the previous November. His action had endangered the publishing schedule and the committee passed a unanimous vote of censure. Miller declined a suggestion that he should, therefore,resign.A motion was then put that his resignation should be enforced and was carried 5-1. The dissenter was the loyal Brooke, who to this day is adamant that the committee acted unconstitutionally and had no power to do what they had done.The AGM a few weeks later were told that the committee would have collapsed if Miller had not gone. To end a distressing affair on a happier note,the Scottish booklet proved to be a model of its kind when it was published later the same year. It was one of16 brought out in 1981,which was a record up to that time. By 1983 the growth of the ACS was underlined by the need to employ clerical help for the first time to deal with correspondence and the distribution and sales of publications. It was estimated that about 5,000 in-coming letters and more than 10,000 items ofoutward mail would be handled during the year and that the combined totals would be well over 20,000 in 1984. This increasingly heavy postal traffic, as the membership approached the 1,000 mark, had become too much of a burden for two or three ACS officers on a part-time basis.Someone had to be found to act as what was to become known as the Administration Officer and in August, Mrs Leigh Scaife began a gruelling,four-year stint in the role. Mrs Scaife lived in Derby and already had worked part-time with Tranter's, the ACS printers, and her proximity to the works brought the ACS savings on the bulk transportation of books and this in turn helped to offset her salary. Mrs Scaife wassoon working more than double the hours originally intended. Unlike her successors she had none of the advantages of a shop or a computer and the ACS stock and files rapidly took over her kitchen and spread around her home. By the time Mrs Scaife left to return to work for Tranter's full time in October, 1987,the ACS was far better 19