relatively few take part in our various activities. Council will continue to keep this aspect of our membership under review. Council would like to target its action towards encouraging local Chinese in certain particular occupations and positions to become members, and will consider further ways of achieving this.
To some degree, our shortage of local Chinese members is a reflection of our poor numbers of Student Members. If we could succeed in getting more students to become Student Members there would be a good chance that they would retain membership after they left full-time education. Council has discussed ways of improving the numbers of Student Members, and will consider the issue again later.
Council is also aware that the number of Institutional Members is unsatisfactory. We would like the Journal to be available in every University which has a School of Chinese or Oriental Studies, but, to date, we are very far indeed from achieving this. Even within Hong Kong sets of the Journal are not yet available in all our tertiary institutions, nor in more than one of our Public Libraries. Various possibilities as to how to improve the position have been considered, and Council will continue to look into the matter. One possibility under active consideration is a new category of membership - Honorary Institutional Membership - which would make it easier for the Society to send sets of the Journal to appropriate tertiary institutions on a reciprocal or zero-cost basis where this seems appropriate.
Income
Our Honorary Treasurer will shortly give his Report on the finances of the Society, and I do not want to say anything here which he will discuss later in greater detail, and, doubtless, greater accuracy. However, I must say that the overall position of our finances at the end of last year was generally satisfactory. The Society is in a sound financial state. We made a very small net deficit for the year (about half of one per cent of our total expenditure), but our cash income from all sources is holding up well. Council does not consider that there is any need at this point in time to seek an increase in our Membership Subscriptions, although Council reserves the right to seek such an increase next year, should the financial position during the year make this prudent.
XVIII
relatively few take part in our various activities. Council will continue to keep this aspect of our membership under review. Council would like to target its action towards encouraging local Chinese in certain particular occupations and positions to become members, and will consider further ways of achieving this.
To some degree, our shortage of local Chinese members is a reflection of our poor numbers of Student Members. If we could succeed in getting more students to become Student Members there would be a good chance that they would retain membership after they left full- time education. Council has discussed ways of improving the numbers of Student Members, and will consider the issue again later.
Council is also aware that the number of Institutional Members is unsatisfactory. We would like the Journal to be available in every University which has a School of Chinese or Oriental Studies, but, to date, we are very far indeed from achieving this. Even within Hong Kong sets of the Journal are not yet available in all our tertiary institutions, nor in more than one of our Public Libraries. Various possibilities as to how to improve the position have been considered, and Council will continue to look into the matter. One possibility under active consideration is a new category of membership - Honorary Institutional Membership - which would make it easier for the Society to send sets of the Journal to appropriate tertiary institutions on a reciprocal or zero-cost basis where this seems appropriate.
Income
Our Honorary Treasurer will shortly give his Report on the finances of the Society, and I do not want to say anything here which he will discuss later in greater detail, and, doubtless, greater accuracy. However, I must say that the overall position of our finances at the end of last year was generally satisfactory. The Society is in a sound financial state. We made a very small net deficit for the year (about half of one per cent of our total expenditure), but our cash income from all sources is holding up well. Council does not consider that there is any need at this point in time to seek an increase in our Membership Subscriptions, although Council reserves the right to seek such an increase next year, should the financial position during the year make this prudent.
XVIII
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