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Thank you very much indeed. I can't tell you what a privilege and pleasure it is to be here. I'm very moved by the testimonials we've all be listening to.

Tonight we've heard many memories: important memories of relationships built over many years. And as I was sitting here, I was thinking about a moment a long, long time ago, when a noble king had a true humanist teacher. And Charlemangne one day asked Alcuin, "What is memory really like? To what could memory be compared? How can I as the leader of a great nation, train and understand the art of my own mind?"

Great humanist that he was, Alcuin took a deep breath and thought, and then he said to the king, "You must understand this. Memory is not like anything at all except for a great library, and everyone has this great library in his mind, in her mind. A great nation has this library even more so. And as leader of the people, you must know that even as memory is a library, so too are libraries memory. They are the precious repository of the past."

Sitting there tonight in the front row - as I was told to do! - I asked myself, to what book in the great world library might we compare this night? To what book is the great world library might we compare Rare Book School and Terry Belanger himself? It seems to me that the most appropriate book of all would be that classic by Erasmus of Rotterdam, In Praise of Folly.

Mr. Belanger, I accuse you - as many doubtless have before - of tremendous and unbridled folly. The folly of founding the Book Arts Press. The folly of starting Rare Book School. The folly, after being crushed by an uncomprehending administration, of starting everything all over again. The folly of collecting 200 lithographic stones and copper plates. The folly of sending out those Valentines! What are they for? Can someone explain? The folly of producing the biggest library address book in the entire world. The folly of evening after evening "Terrorizing!"

Terry Belenger: I accuse you - and I praise you for your folly. You are a fool for books. You are a fool for libraries. You are a fool for collectors and collecting. Terry Belenger is a fool for the enterprise that has been his life. But much more, more than all this, the man who sits before you is a fool for you.

I am a poetry teacher, and I love to teach my students figurae verborum, the classic figures of rhetoric. And when I get to the figure of oxymoron, I explain by saying, "Well, come on, you know, jumbo shrimp! military intelligence! humble Jesuit!"

Yet, I stand before you this evening deeply honored and deeply, deeply humbled to receive this great commission - to carry on, to deepen, and to extend the work of the Rare Book School at the University of Virginia, that has already been so supportive and so generous.

Ladies and gentlemen, the wisdom of the wise is pure folly, but the foolishness of the foolish man turns out to be true wisdom and grace.

Final day of RBS...a sad thing, indeed. We made our last morning trip to Para Coffee with Chris and made it to our classes on time. We finished up photographic processes and reviewed our various soft-spots in the morning. After a quick lunch (Bodo Bagels, very good), we tood our Print Identification Humiliation...sorry...Test again. I did considerably better on Friday than I did on Monday. That said, what I really learned is a good sense of the depth and breadth of what I *do not know*. In the end, this is probably a very good take-away (that, and how grateful I am to know people who *really* know prints).

Another amazing day at RBS. Started as usual at our lovely inn with a great breakfast (blueberry pancakes, bacon, etc). A quick stop at Para for coffee and we were back in the room discussing color photo techniques.

Another great day in C'ville. Today started with another great breakfast at the Inn (the peppered bacon is possibly the best I've had). Walked up with Chris Lowenstein with the usual stop at Para Coffee on the way to class.

Another great day in C'ville. Spent today looking at various engravings and etchings (copper, steel, etc) and learning about technique and implications. We had a lab in the afternoon where we did dry-point etchings, inked and printed them. Suffice it to say, you can talk about inking a plate and cleaning it for printing....and then you can do it and *understand* what it means. Very cool.

Our first full day at RBS started with a wonderful breakfast at our inn. While they generally do not start breakfast until 8am, they were ready to serve those of us attending RBS at 740 so we could make it by our 830 start. Breakfast included a pesto and prosciutto strata, fresh melon, apple crumble muffin and peppered bacon. What a great day to start the day.

Day one has been great fun. We made it down to Poplar Forest at about 1015 and spend a few hours there. We took the tour and then explored the grounds. It is a remarkable house and, in many ways much "nicer" than Mont. (that is, it is livable and a rational scale). If the universe treats us right, we will rebuilt it one day as our home. Hope springs eternal.

I've included images that show a tulip poplar (apparently among the tallest trees in North America) from the north porch (front) of the house (showing the circular brick columns). The image of the south of the building shows the sunken garden...if you look closely, you can see the triple hung windows at the rear. The last Poplar image shows one of the

two brick privies (octagon, even).

The last three images show sites from UVA and/or RBS. The Rotunda in the background during our tour of campus (Suzanne and Chris are in the center). E.A. Poe's room on The Lawn. Terry Belanger offering us a welcome and an overview of RBS.

Lovely reception, yummy dinner of cold salads (lovely, as it is hot and humid...my favorite). We start bright and early tomorrow at 830 am. more to follow.

We have made it safely to the DC area. It was a long drive, about 10 hours. A bit of rain and an amazing electrical storm...bolts ripping the sky apart for half an hour or so. We passed on bad, multi-car accident north of DC (at least a dozen cars, traffic backed up for miles, glad it was on the northbound side). Must be to bed as tomorrow is Poplar Forest (Jefferson's second home and Suzanne's favorite place on earth)...RBS welcome tomorrow afternoon. More to follow.

Suzanne and I are packed and more or less ready to leave tomorrow morning for Rare Book School (not counting the myriad of minor loose ends). We should be able to load up the van and be on the road in the early AM tomorrow with a destination of Washington, DC (to spend the night with a friend of Suzanne's). We will leave early Sunday to spend the day at Poplar Forest (Jefferson's second home) before return to C'ville for a Sunday afternoon/evening gathering of the RBS attendees.

Chris Mallin is Professor of Corporate Governance and Finance & Director of the Centre for Corporate Governance Research at the University of Birmingham. She is the author of Corporate Governance and she blogs with fellow OUP author Bob Tricker at Corporate Governance. The below post is an adapted version of one found on that blog, and is about the calls for wider adoption of a ’say on pay’ in the US. Her previous OUP post can be found here.

Widespread concern at the high levels of executive director remuneration has led to calls for wider adoption of a ‘say on pay’ in the US. Investors in the UK and Australia have, for many years, had the right to vote on the remuneration committee report of the companies in which they invest. The vote on the remuneration committee report is an advisory one meaning that it is not binding on the company. However in practice institutional investors have tended not to vote against the remuneration committee reports and on the – until recently – relatively rare occasions on which the remuneration committee report was voted against, it was seen as a strong signal of disapproval about some aspect of executive remuneration and one which the directors would be unwise to ignore.

Royal Bank of Scotland
It was no surprise to anyone that the Royal Bank of Scotland shareholders overwhelmingly rejected the banks remuneration committee report at the companies Annual General Meeting on 3rd April. Jane Croft and Andrew Bolger in their article ‘Thumbs down for RBS pay report’ stated that some 90.42% of votes cast rejected the report. UK Financial Investments Ltd (UKFI) the Government owned company which manages the taxpayers’ shareholding in RBS, and controls 58% of the RBS shares, voted against the report. Manifest, the proxy voting agency, stated that ‘the resolution on the remuneration report at Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc represents the highest ever “Total Dissent” vote on the remuneration report since the introduction of the requirement for the report to be put forward to a non-binding vote’.

Remuneration (compensation) committees
Remuneration committees have previously been criticised for having a ratcheting effect on executive directors’ remuneration. The composition of such committees is usually independent non-executive (outside) directors but nonetheless this has not stopped the increasing levels of executive remuneration. This is probably in part attributable to the fact that remuneration committees would tend to recommend remuneration for executive directors in the upper quartile of their peer group hence the ratcheting effect over time. The Corporate Library points out that, in the US, chief executives pay rose 24 percent in 2007 giving a median remuneration of $8.8 million.

Trade Unions Involvement
An interesting development is for trade unions calling for more worker involvement in setting top executive pay. Brian Groom in his article ‘TUC leader urges staff input over chiefs’ pay’ highlights that Brendan Barber, General Secretary of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), stated ‘there was “massive anger” among workers at paying the price for a recession made in the boardroom, not on the shop floor’. The directors of FTSE 100 companies came in for criticism as well as the directors of banks, with Mr Barber arguing for ‘workforce representation involved in remuneration committees of major companies’. The idea of representation of the workforce on the board or board committees has traditionally not been given much consideration by UK boards but maybe that might change in the future.

Shareholder proposals/resolutions
Another are where we may see change is in relation to shareholder proposals or resolutions. Although it is possible in the UK for shareholders to put forward shareholder proposals or resolutions, it is not that easy to do and hence dialogue has been the most frequently used tool of corporate governance with shareholder proposals maybe numbering just five or six a year.

In the US it is much easier to put forward a shareholder proposal and so we can see 800 or 900 of these each year in US companies. It is likely that in the future more of these shareholder proposals will be relating to executive remuneration and that they will achieve strong support from institutional investors who are increasingly being criticised for not having taken more action to help limit executive remuneration. Francesco Guerrera and Deborah Brewster in their article ‘Mutual funds helped to drive up executive pay’ highlight that mutual funds have tended to vote in favour of companies compensation plans and this has effectively sanctioned these spiralling executive remuneration packages. Kristin Gribben in ‘Pay proposals to dominate proxy season’ puts forward the view that, in future, mutual funds in the US will be more likely to support remuneration (compensation) related resolutions filed by shareholders.

Back-door pay
There is concern that some companies may seek to remuneration executive directors via the ‘back-door’ if, for example, bonus schemes do not pay out. Pauline Skypala in ‘Warning over “back-door” pay’ highlights that this is a concern to some investors including Co-operative Asset Management whose corporate governance manager, Paul Wade, states ‘If a company fails to create value for its shareholders, it is totally inappropriate to grant rewards to management that are disproportionate to shareholder returns’.

Future developments
With the continuing focus on executive directors’ remuneration packages, the forthcoming AGMs promise to give rise to many interesting debates, much emotive discussion, more shareholder proposals, and many more instances where ‘say on pay’ will result in an emphatic ‘no’ to excessive remuneration or remuneration which does not have appropriately stretching performance links.