Dear IMIF Member

AN APPEAL TO THE MEMBERSHIP

As you will have gathered from our most recent Newsletter the finances of IMIF are to put it mildly in poor shape. Costs have been kept firmly under control.

Consequently there is no slack to be taken up. Revenue must therefore be our target. The annual fee for full members has remained at the figure of £950 now for some 20 years and of course there are a number of individual members who pay a fraction of this. On the plus side the generosity of several steadfast friends in hosting our lunches has been outstanding as has the enormous assistance provided by The Baltic Exchange. There is also the continued enthusiasm for IMIF and its aims, and support for our Annual Dinner is unmatched.

There is by contrast a growing number of organisations being set up and apparently generously funded to cover such esoteric topics as "The Image of Shipping". Like the Peace of God the latter problem is always with us and in fact is among the aims clearly stated in IMIF's Mission Statement  I of course support the aims of these admirable initiatives but ponder somewhat whimsically at the funding of them compared with our own.

I am committed to IMIF in a most personal way. I believe that it is a truly unique organisation in the complicated maritime world. There is continued work to be done utilizing the wide-ranging expertise of our international maritime membership in terms of information, objective lobbying and so on. We simply are different from the clearly directed aims of such as Flag States, IACS, Intertanko, Intercargo, National Shipping Councils etc etc.

My own leadership must come to an end sometime. I think I should aim to pass on the baton when (and if!) I reach 80 in two short years' time. That is, at this moment, another story.

Here and now we have to face a simple mathematical fact. We have been operating at a loss for several years now. Income stands at approximately £66,000 per year (mergers of banks and the like whittle away at our Membership; there are virtually no resignations) while expenditure is £70,100. These figures in detail are available but I will not burden you with them now. It is not a huge figure admittedly but our reserves are used up, a loss is a loss and we are no longer able to sustain it.

What should I ask you to do? A special levy of £100 per member would solve our immediate problem. George Tsavliris has already contributed. Can I ask each of you to consider doing so as well?

We continue to be approached to tackle various of the anomalies of the international maritime market but without at least minimum resources we cannot work to our potential best.

Please do assist us if you can. Thank you.

Yours sincerely

J G Davis Chairman