Anvil News

Letter sent to all subscribers with Volume 26 Numbers 3 & 4

Dear Subscriber,

Thank you for your continued support for Anvil through a twenty-fifth anniversary year that has not been totally smooth but which ends with exciting although still challenging prospects for the future. We had hoped this double issue would arrive with you before Christmas but sadly the editor suffering swine flu in what should have been the final stages of compilation combined with the ongoing work needed in relation to the future of Anvil caused a number of delays. We hope you will find that it has been worth waiting for as you read it.

In relation to our future, we wanted to provide an update following our letter with issue 2 in the summer. First of all, thank you for your support by letter, email, prayer and giving. Although all is not yet totally clear, a definite shape is appearing for our future. We’ve been in fruitful discussions over several months with a potential partner and following a meeting in early December we now hope to put a concrete proposal to Anvil Trustees early in 2010. This will involve moving to a focus on publishing the journal online (which we believe is essential for extending our market and establishing a secure future) but also maintaining a print journal, aware that many have clearly expressed a desire to continue with this format. The generous donations we have received from many of you this year following our appeal will be used, as part of this transition, to create an online catalogue of Anvil back-issues that will make the resources of Anvil available to a new audience.

Unfortunately, the amount of work involved in this transition to a new partnership and format means our initial hope that we could manage the change simply by reducing to three issues next year now appears unrealistic. We are therefore not expecting to be able to produce another print issue until the second half of 2010 and we are unclear how many issues we will produce in total during the next calendar year. As all of Anvil’s work is done voluntarily by busy people in their spare time, given the pressures evident this last year it seemed best to be realistic and to take a break for about six months to manage the transition and finalise arrangements. This uncertainty about both the timing and number of issues in 2010 explains the lack of a subscription form in the current issue and we apologise for any disappointment caused by this development.

We will write to all of you again when our plans are clearer which we hope will be by March 2010. In particular, we are aware that many of you have another year to run in a 3-year subscription offer taken out for 2008-2010. Once our future plans are clarified we will inform you of how we intend either to provide a refund for the final of those three years or to supply you with copies of the new-look journal.

Please do pray for the ongoing work of this new phase in the life of Anvil. All of us who have been involved in the discussions are excited by this development and the possibilities of continuing the mission of Anvil in a new way as we continue to foster theology that is Anglican and evangelical in ethos and enables Christian mission both locally and globally.

Thank you for your support for the journal, whether only for a year or two or for the whole of its first twenty-five years. We hope that, despite the hiatus, you will continue to support us in our new format and will commend us to others. We will be in touch again in the next few months.

With best wishes for 2010,

Andrew Goddard (Editor) and Paul Weston (Chair of Editorial Board)

19 December 2009