Last Word.

(From Lloyds List)

Joint venture

Last year saw The Marine Society, the oldest marine charity, merge with The Sea Cadets to become The Marine Society ' Sea Cadets, which maintains the continuity in a pleasing fashion and eschews the fashion for funny names dreamed up by 'image consultants'.

We now have the opportunity to welcome the Seafarer magazine, which will be published by the charity three times every year, and very good it seems too. The inaugural edition even has a feature on our Shipmaster of the Year, Captain Ken Owen, who retired last year after 50 years afloat. It is a magazine that caters for the wider clientele of the modern society, and perhaps the only feature we miss is the publication of work from Seafarers Education Society competition, which over the years, has brought to wider attention some surprisingly good poets and writers.

MODERN children are not backward about coming forward, especially about green issues, on which they usually feel quite strongly.

They have just held their own Children's World Summit for the Environment in Aichi, Japan, attended by four International Maritime Organization 'ambassadors' who presented messages on behalf of the IMO and marine environment protection agencies in Greece, Turkey and Cyprus.

The Children's Summit was organised by the UN Environment Programme to run concurrently with the World Exposition 2005 in the Japanese city, the theme being 'Nature's Wisdom'.