Your portfolio doing badly? So's the AHA's.

At the Business Meeting Sunday executive director Arnita Jones announced that the association's stock portfolio has declined some twenty-five percent in value. "Instead of almost four million a year ago," she said, "we have about three million."

Jones said the current budget is slightly in surplus, though advertising revenues are down "somewhat." The AHA benefits from ads for jobs. In a down market there are fewer jobs and therefore fewer ads.

Membership is down two hundred, but out of a membership of nearly 15,000 "that is not a large percentage." Nonetheless, she add that it is obviously disturbing.

At the same time she was thrilled to announce that the New York conference had drawn more attendees than any in history (at least as far as anyone knew). Five thousand pre-registered for the conference. Nearly another thousand registered at the event, for a grand total approaching six thousand. Scholars at the meeting represented sixty countries.