Eden Ludlam.

Life and keeping

Eden Ludlam founded the Institute in 2019 upon two assets: a paperclip, and a habit of keeping things nobody had asked to be kept. Before the Institute there were the shoeboxes; before the shoeboxes there was the habit; before the habit, presumably, a childhood of tidy drawers, about which the Secretary-General declines to be minuted.

The Secretary-General seals, appoints, reads the Charter aloud once yearly, slowly, in Room 5, and holds the spare key, which has never been needed and is checked monthly all the same. The full constitutional position is kept under Governance and Article VIII of the Charter.

The bus tickets, 2008–2026 and ongoing

Since 2008 the Secretary-General has kept every bus ticket issued, without exception and without intention, in a series of shoeboxes in the store. The keeping continues: each ticket is dated and boxed the week it arrives, and the boxes are shelved in order. It is a sacred act, performed the same way every time, which is what makes it sacred.

The tickets are not, by the Institute’s own test, eligible for display: once you know about them they are no longer unremarkable. They may nevertheless be asked after, on a Thursday, by visitors willing to be told no.

The office, founded 2019

The Secretary-General founded the role in 2019, upon building the Institute in the foreground. The role serves very little purpose — the Porter having the door, the keepers having everything else, and the bench having the casting silence. It is symbolically very important, which in this house outranks purpose. The seal, the key, and the reading-aloud are symbols that work.

The office carries no salary, no expenses, and no correspondence requiring an answer. The Secretary-General receives visitors on Thursdays, answers nothing requiring an answer, and loses gracefully at the annual general knowledge, which has occurred yearly. Upon a vacancy an election shall be called within the year; while Eden Ludlam lives, no other candidacy is valid, and premature nominations are returned unread.