and which still organises seminars throughout the year) than many modern learned societies. The executive committee interspersed these short (in some cases only two hours) scientific meetings with co-ordinated activity with other interested organisations (e.g. with the Dutch gerontological Society, with the IAG and with open meetings at such as the one held on "The Biology of Hair Growth" held at the Royal College of Surgeons). Many routine secretarial functions were handled by the Institute of biology, of which the society remains a member today. By 1958, the executive committee had decided that "the time was not right to launch public campaigns for funds". However, attempts to secure sustained funding for ageing research continued throughout the society's history. The question of how best to disseminate the scientific findings of members was complicated by both the way in which the society operated and the variety of offers it received. As early as 1955, the organisation had considered sponsoring the European Journal of gerontology (probably analogous to the Journal of gerontology founded in 1946 shortly after the American branch of the club for ageing had become the GSA) but had decided not to do so. An invitation from Fritz Vezar and Karger that Gerontologica (now Gerontology) should become the official Journal of the BSRA was turned down in 1959, shortly after the Journal had been founded. The primary reason why neither formation of the society journal de novo or official linkage with a newly formed Journal was adopted seems to have been that the BSRA had formed a successful (and long lasting) linkage with the Ciba foundation. In early 1952 Prof RE Tunbridge (elected a member of the BSRA executive committee in 1954) had asked the Foundation if it was willing to hold a related conference on ageing close to the time of the third Congress of the IAG (July 1954). Not only did the Director of the foundation agree to this, but the Trustees took the decision in early 1954 "to embark on special measures in support, internationally, of basic research relevant to the problems of ageing so that the conference already arranged became the first in what it is to be hoped will be a series of conferences on subjects in this field". The Foundation launched a published series called "Colloquia on Ageing". The first of these (published 1955 on general aspects of ageing) was chaired by Prof Tunbridge and