Mediterranean Seminar Mailing list (Cheshire email)

Dear Mediterranean Seminar Associates

Some of you may have recently received an email from a Mr. Gerard Cheshire (affiliated with Bristol University) addressed to "Mediterranean Seminar Associates," with the aim of disseminating one of his essays on the Voynich manuscript.

This was not a message from the Mediterranean Seminar and we regret the intrusion.

Mr. Cheshire has sent us numerous emails aiming to disseminate his work, and we have declined to do so. It seems he tried to take matters into his own hands and sent out at least one message to part of our membership.

Let me assure you that our mailing list has not been hacked or compromised, and that we do not make our mailing list available to any third parties or use it for any reason except to send out official Mediterranean Seminar announcements.

This was certainly not such an announcement.

From what we can see Mr. Cheshire started going through the alphabetical list of our associates' names (which is posted on our website) and began looking googling email addresses (we do not list or link to your email addresses). We have around 1,500 members and, thankfully, it looks like he tired out by the time he reached the end of “B”.

Rest assured we regret his communication, but it did not result from any lack of diligence or care on our part. There is little one can do to prevent this sort of behavior.

You can be certain that any future communication you receive from Mr. Cheshire or disseminating his work has not come from the Mediterranean Seminar.

However in view of the fact that he has disseminated a link to his work to our membership, we feel in fairness we should provide you with some responses to his work, which can be found at: 
https://www.academia.edu/39168130/Fake_news_in_Romance_Studies_Taylor_and_Francis_On_the_solving_of_the_Voynich_manuscript_by_Gerard_Cheshire
https://www.academia.edu/39217683/No_the_Voynich_manuscript_has_not_been_deciphered
.https://www.historyextra.com/period/medieval/has-voynich-manuscript-code-solved-cracked-no-peer-review-process/
https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/05/no-someone-hasnt-cracked-the-code-of-the-mysterious-voynich-manuscript/

We have asked Mr. Cheshire to refrain from such behavior in future. If you receive any further emails from him or any other party other than @mediterrraneanseminar.org or from either of the Seminar co-directors, purporting, suggesting, or implying that the message is from the Mediterranean Seminar, please advise us so that we can take appropriate steps.

Best wishes
The Mediterranean Seminar