Queen's Silver Medal Award:

We are privileged to administer the annual award given by our Patron, The Queen, to the best shipyard apprentices. The medals, supplemented by cash prizes from the Company, are awarded to the three apprentices with the greatest potential following assessment of leadership, innovation and inter personal skills during a week's course of outwardbound training, learning, presentations and interviews. In 2004 22 candidates applied to participate and 12 were selected to compete for the medals.  In 2008 24 apprentices were selected to attend the course, up from 18 to 2007 and 12 in 2006. This scheme is highly regarded by employers and we intend to increase modestly the prizes to maintain the high standard of the competition and ensure we continue to make it attractive for applicants. The cost of this event is now over £20,000 per annum and likely to rise in the future as its personal developmental success is further recognised. We want to continue this expansion and   to achieve the financial backing to do so.

The Billmeir Scheme:

The Company already endows a number of practical courses in ship and boat building at recognised training institutions. In 2003/4 26 candidates were supported at a cost of £16,000. We want to increase the number of people participating in these courses by raising the support to £30,000 per annum.

Fairbridge Trust:

This Trust, which has already received modest help from the Company, is a nationwide organisation helping 3,500 severely disadvantaged young people per annum (age 1325, 75% of whom are under 18). They have multiple problems, such as homelessness, mental health, drug misuse, history of offending, no parental support. After initial courses, the young people follow different programmes. One of these programmes is to spend a week on a tall ship "The Spirit of Fairbridge". In 2004 The Fairbridge Trust introduced a Traineeship Scheme whereby two candidates, selected from those who have spent a week at sea, are given one year working on the ship to gain a Royal Yachting Association qualification. Thus they will achieve something tangible. The Company would like to sponsor these two traineeships at a total cost of £20,000 per annum.

Grants to Academic Institutions:

"To be able to give students some meaningful ship acquaintance and sea going experience" is the cry of most universities running maritime courses. This broadens the students' outlook, helps them to understand ships better and improves the liaison between shipowners, naval architects, shipyards and managers. At present the Company, through legacies, gives modest amounts to two universities to help students with placements during the summer vacations. Judging by the students' written reports these are valuable but the Company would like to include other universities and to widen the scope so that visits to shipyards, ports and seagoing opportunities are available to more students, particularly of naval architecture and marine engineering. The Company hopes to raise this support to £40,000 per annum.

Outward Bound Bursaries:

Each year, through the network of our Liverymen, nominations are sought for young people who are financially or socially disadvantaged to enable them to participate in voyages and courses run by members of the Association of Sea Training Organisations, The Outward Bound Trust and like organisations. In 2003/4 47 candidates participated in voyages and courses costing £26,000. This scheme has produced measurable results in terms of personal development. The Company would like to increase the number of candidates benefiting from this scheme to 75 at an annual cost of £40,000.

Maritime Awareness Courses ("Taster Courses"):

Far too few people in education are aware of the maritime industry. In order to help rectify this the Company is in negotiation with maritime colleges and others to run courses for 14 year olds. These will be held at universities in the school holidays, in the hope that the pupils will be attracted to the idea of reading maritime subjects at university. The intention is to give up to 200 pupils an exposure to shipping through these week long courses at a cost of about £20,000 per annum. If these are successful, the idea could be extended to Foundation Courses, to help those who want to read maritime subjects, but have either taken the wrong exams or have not attained the correct grades.

Maritime And Other Charitable Giving:

Regular grants are made to a number of charities with maritime links, (for example the George Green School in Docklands and originally established by one of our liverymen) as well as to meet the Company's City obligations. Responsive donations are also made to maritime projects where youth is involved, in particular the Sea Cadets. 38 causes benefited under this heading in 2003/4 at a cost of £55,000. It is not anticipated that we will increase our overall giving in this category as the Company's influence in these charities is usually limited. It is now our intention to direct our efforts towards educational and personal development initiatives where the Company can identify and add value to the specific projects mentioned above.

The Worshipful Company of Shipwrights, a City of London Livery Company, is 59th in the order of seniority (fixed in 1515) of the 107 livery companies. Although the Company was not granted livery until 1782, it is however incorporated "by prescription", a legal acknowledgement that it existed before 1199. It is one of the oldest and also one of the larger companies, with over 400 liverymen and 250 freemen, whose qualification for admission is a professional maritime background.

One of the fundamental purposes of the Livery Companies is to support charitable works and education and training in their respective fields. For the Shipwrights the focus is naturally on maritime and waterborne projects and activities. The Shipwrights charitable and educational strategy currently focuses its support in three principal areas:

• Sea training and experience for youth
• Education with a maritime bias
• Maritime causes

This is achieved through a screening process which has been established over many years to ensure that our contributions go to people in need of our support or organisations where there is the absolute minimum administrative cost diluting the value of our funds at the point of application. Through these efforts we know that there are opportunities where the Shipwrights can make a real difference when we have sufficient funding to cover longer term commitments linking our awards with worthwhile causes.

We have seen that young people from deprived situations, where dysfunctional family backgrounds or other problems have led to a life of crime or drug abuse or other anti social behaviour, benefit enormously from exposure to the structured life outward bound and sail training type activities offer. There are also many charitable projects where more fortunate young people in marine related higher education can be sponsored by the Company to contribute their skills.

To celebrate the 50'th anniversary of the appointment of our Permanent Master, His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh, the Worshipful Company of Shipwrights has launched an appeal for additional funds to which he has lent his support.

There is today a pressing need to improve and ensure the education of future generations who may be attracted to the maritime sector and to raise awareness amongst those who might not otherwise have considered a career in this sector.