Report of the President for the Year 1986 We pursued the Campaign fo r Sea Hi story th rough 1986 as an all -hands effort to establish the National Society in its work fo r the seafaring heritage. We compare thi s to getti ng ball ast in the boat, so she can stand up to her canvas and get to windward . This effort topped out as the year ended at $403 ,023-including extensive donated services-notably over the $350,000 goal set a year and a half before at the Annual Meeting held in June 1985. Alan Villiers said of his earl y voyaging: " Here in the battered bark , all men mattered"; each person and each contribution was vital to thi s bootstrap achievement, which had to be ac hieved among our own membership (another motto of thi s campaign of internal renewal and strengthening was: " No one will do it fo r us"). The effort was widely shared . In all , 1,734 members made smaller gifts of under $ 1,000 , and these totaled $71 , 183, or over 20 percent of the goal. That is an extraordinary ac hievement in anyo ne ' s book, and one that prov ides a broad base fo r funds we must ultimately rai se outside fo r the threatened heritage in shi ps , and to meet the opportunities of youth education and sail training . If the " ordinary" member was the hero of th is effort , he or she was nobly seconded , surely, by Commodore " Bus" Mosbacher, Chairman of Operation Sail , whose letters on our behalf reached over half a million people in the course of the campaign- bringing in 3,500 new members. Leading nautical magazines opened their hearts, their ad vertising columns and their subscri ber li sts, adding more new members. One is particul arl y mindful of a lead editorial in Yachting magazine supporting our efforts, and of Peter Spectre writing in Wooden Boat that the National Soc iety might be " our very last best hope" fo r the historic ships of the seafaring heritage. The res ul ts of thi s effort show in the year' s income and expense statement , shown below. Membershi p income rose from $ 135 ,000 in the pre-campaign year 1984 to $225,000 in 1986. We expect it will exceed $270 ,000 in 1987 , refl ecting a do ubled enro ll ment of active , current members. Those interested in budgets- as I hope we all are-might note two other acco mpanying fac ts:
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Grants received (and expe nded) dropped off radically , from $ 148,000-principally for the Wavertree-in 1984, to $ 11 ,000 in 1985 , the first campaign year. You can ' t do everything and we knew we' d have to cut down on raising and administering fund s for other projects, as we turned to making a project of the Society itself. Grants turned up ward in 1986, as we fe lt confident enough to mount the Elissa and SCOW campaigns (of which more later). • Expenses did not go up much for staff, which limited what we could do ; every new doll ar raised was invested in membership growth . Promotion and administrative costs rose sharpl y, beyond extensive donated services, reflecting the needs of the Campaign for Sea Hi story . What else was going on? In 1986 we also: • Co-sponsored with the National Tru st for Historic Preservation the voyage of the bark Elissa of 1877 , to Operation Sail in New York and to other ports. Beefeater Gin , Laurance S. Rockefeller, Peter Manigault , Joan K. Davidson of the J.M . Kaplan Fund and others generousl y supported our part in thi s voyage , which promoted the whole historic ships movement. Elissa has been one of the most farfetched projects of the Society and of Society me mbers Karl Kortum and Peter Throckmorton since the earl y 1960s. • Co-sponsored with the New York State Museum a conference on New York State waterways, funded by the Edwin Gould Foundation fo r Children. This led to the founding in August of the State Conference on Waterways (SCOW), which I serve as Chairman and form er State Parks Commissioner Alexander P . Aldrich as the very able President. Startup fundin g was provided by the Jackson Hole Preserve . Trustees include our Trustee and Overseer Schuyler M . Meyer, Jr. , and such activists as Queene Hooper , editor of Waterway Guide. •
Op Ed meets Mobil Oil, as (from the right) Nick Spiloto of the United Federation of Teachers, Camille Freas, Director of Op Ed, Frank Massa , Op Ed instructor, Steve Cooney of Mobil Oil and our Vice Cha irman James Ean brave winter winds with Seward Park High School students at Port Mobil. Photo, Mobil Oil Corp.
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Played a ro le in Annual Conference of the Waterfront Center, a citizen group in Washington , DC which publi shes reports on waterfront situations and intervenes , at the request of the local authorities, to improve them. They bring a marvellously integrated spectrum of concerns and experti se to this mission , and the National Society is now proud to be working with the Center on a series of waterfront opportunities fo r maritime cultural development . The Secretary of our American Ship Trust, Eric Berryman , and Honorary Trustee Dick Rath are particularly active in this . Sponsored a Seamen's Recognition program in New York Harbor with Project Liberty, which brought out a fleet of sixteen working harbor craft to salute the Statue of Liberty on her actual birthday, October 22 . The occasion lacked the showman ship of the July 4 celebrations, but for those afl oat with us and for thousands of schoolchildren on the Jersey shore , it was ~o m e thin g to see the harbor lighter Vernie S. (built 1897) steam through the red , white and blue fountain s of New York Fireboat No. I . At the helm was Anthony Rando (born 1898) , who was celebrating hi s own seventy-fifth anni versary of life in the United States . Showmanship did not build the nation ; people like Anthony Rando and vessels like the Vernie S. did . N OTE: The organizations in volved in these activities publish fa scinating newsletters, and invite membership . For sample newsletter and membership brochure of the National Tru st, SCOW, the Waterfront Center, or Proj ect Liberty, just write and ask us .
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SEA HISTORY , SPRING 1987