INTRODUCTORY PROCEEDINGS 



Twentieth General Meeting of the Society ok Navai. Architects and 



Marine Engineers. 



Thursday Morning, November 21, 191 2. 



The Twentieth Annual JSleeting of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine 

 Engineers was held in the Engineering Societies Building, New York City, on 

 Thursday and Friday, November 21 and 22, 191 2. 



President Stevenson Taylor called the meeting to order at 10.30 o'clock. 



The President: — The meeting will please come to order. We will listen to 

 the report of the vSecretary-Treasurer, which is also the report to you of the Council. 

 The report will be distributed to you so that you can read it in detail. 



The Secretary; — I will read the important points to you. Regarding the 

 membership of the Society, we came to the meeting with a total of 733 members in 

 all grades — ^that was the membership on November i, 1912. 



There have been during the year, unfortunately, a very large number of deaths, 

 which reduced our membership considerably, but the members will be interested 

 to know that, taking account of the applications passed on by the Council, there 

 will be added sixty-five names at this meeting. Our membership stands to-day at 

 798, which is a very considerable increase over the membership at the same time last 

 year. The general status of the membership is that in the grades of Members and 

 Associates, which, of course, are in a way our most important grades, our member- 

 ship is steadily increasing, but our list of Junior Members is going down hill very 

 rapidly. The Junior Membership class is important to the Society, as it constitutes 

 the nucleus of the membership for promotion to the other grades, and it would be 

 well if the members would make all possible effort to recruit that class of membership. 



As regards the non-payment of dues, we are in a very good position this year. 

 The Council paid especial attention to this matter last year and directed the Secre- 

 tary to see that all members were approached very seriously on that question, 

 because while there were a great many delinquents it was felt that this was due to 

 lack of attention more than anything else, and the result of canvassing the members 

 of the Society who were delinquent in the payment of dues was that we drew in a 

 great many back accounts and greatly reduced our total outstanding dues, and that 

 now stands at a little over $2,000, which is less than half what it has been in some 

 previous years. 



As regards the financial statement which is printed in the report, it appears 

 that we have a cash balance in hand of some $1,800, as compared to a cash balance 

 at the same time last year of some $800. That, on the face of it, would appear to 



