A year ago today the DPC team gathered online and took the decision to close our offices and work from home. We've been working from home ever since. Let me be more precise: the phrase we used was 'at home in a time of emergency doing whatever work was practicable'. That's an important difference and underlines the point which will follow.
There are lots of insights about life and work that emerge from the pandemic. Others will do it more thoughtfully and more eloquently but I cannot let the anniversary pass without sharing one abiding emotion: which is gratitude.
I am immensely grateful to the DPC staff team for their energy, patience, commitment and care in the last year. That must extend also to their families who have enabled the DPC's work to continue, all the while adjusting to their own worries, discomforts and disruptions too.
I am grateful to the directors who have advised us wisely, putting our welfare and wellbeing at the heart of each decision, never once losing signt of the fact that the DPC's purpose and product is community. I am grateful to the many members and friends who have shared with us over the year, and the many who have joined us also.
At that meeting last year we had never heard of DPConnect or WeMissIPRES. We couldn't have conceived an online-only Digital Preservation Awards or an online launch party. And yet these have been really successful, changing our percetions and broadening our horizons. I am not thanking the pandemic for these innovations: I am thanking the collegiality and creativity of the global DP community.
Let's not kid ourselves, this has been a terrible year. Each of us has walked into some pretty dark places emotionally. We can't ignore the suffering around us nor the many challenges ahead. But facing them together seems better than facing them alone. And that is what the amazing little team at the DPC has helped me do; helped each other do. They have done extraordinary things and I am very proud of them.
So thank you. That's what I wanted to say.