The past month has been even more eventful than the previous, hectic months and I am pleased to report that our Institute is beginning to see the rewards of considerable hard work undertaken by many dedicated members. Our application for Affiliate of the Engineering Council has been lodged and is being processed. A meeting with the Science Council has been arranged to pursue a similar path. The membership survey undertaken by Steve Barke has shown that a high percentage of our members are either chemists or physicists which makes membership of the Science Council equally relevant to our Institute, while providing additional benefits and choice to our members.

I was pleased to attend, at no expense to the Institute, the inauguration of the GATAP Training Scheme in Bahrain. This is a major step forward for the Institute and I am most grateful to all those who made this happen (see Peter Morgan's report on page 8 for more details). I also attended the recent Governing Board meeting and found the upbeat nature of the meeting most refreshing (again, more details are provided in a separate report by Roger Hudson, page 6).

We have high hopes of starting new branches in South Wales and Bahrain, as well as resurrecting the Midland Branch. David Fielder of Nottingham and John Dyson of Derby, who both work for Transco and are well known in the corrosion industry, would welcome any offers from interested members to form a new Midlands Branch Committee. Anyone interested should contact the ICorr Head Office at Leighton Buzzard.

Work on organising our September conference and exhibition in Edinburgh has now stepped up a gear. Details of the 80-odd papers so far accepted are listed in the centre pages and registration forms are now being processed. There are a limited number of exhibition stands still available. Please contact Linda at H.O for details, a booking form or any other information. This is the first joint NACE and ICorr conference for some time and it is looking very attractive with a comprehensive range of papers being presented by a majority of speakers from overseas. The social programme is looking even more impressive.

Finally, could I please ask all members to help the Institute by promptly returning their completed annual subscriptions as these will greatly help with our cash-flow at a time of high expenditure.