After a lot of careful consideration, the OR Society Board has accepted an offer for our building, Seymour House, in Birmingham.

There are several reasons behind this decision, and it was not taken lightly. Since launching our apprenticeship offer, our staff team has become more geographically dispersed as we have recruited the best people regardless of location. During Covid, we successfully moved our operations online and demonstrated that a physical office is no longer essential. Today, the office is used only two days per week, and most training is delivered online.

At the same time, the building now requires substantial refurbishment and ongoing maintenance. Annual running costs are around £50,000 and continue to rise due to increasing energy and insurance costs. By reducing these costs, we can invest more resources directly into supporting our members and advancing the Society’s work.

Property sales can be difficult to predict, but our current plan is to vacate the Birmingham office by the end of June 2026, enabling us to complete the sale as soon as possible thereafter.

What happens next?

Although we are moving towards a more remote way of working, we still need a registered address for the charity, and we still need a physical location to hold occasional meetings and to store our materials.

We intend to switch the registered address of the charity from Seymour House to De Morgan House in London from 1 July 2026, pending signature of a room sponsorship agreement with the London Mathematical Society (LMS). This agreement will ensure that the Society still has a physical presence and home for its memorabilia, and a location to hold in-person meetings of the Board and its Committees. The room will also be available for members’ use on a bookable basis. It will co-locate us with LMS and the Institute for Mathematics and its Applications (IMA), furthering the scope for future collaboration and partnership working.

We are seeking views from members for the name of the Society’s new room at De Morgan House. Please send your suggestions to the Project Coordinator, Mandy Blackett, at [email protected] by Tuesday 30 June. We will take a vote on the name of the room at the Annual General Meeting on Wednesday 29 July.

We also need a location to store materials in the Birmingham area and will be moving into temporary rented accommodation in July. This office will have a limited amount of working space for staff and again will be available to members on a bookable basis.

The Society will continue to review its longer-term accommodation needs and consider what a permanent home for the OR Society might look like in the future.

We have prepared a list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) in relation to the sale of the building in case you would like any further information. FAQs can be found here.