Merchant Navy Association

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Category: General

Published on Monday, 03 February 2014 23:35

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Dear Reader

Our founder members, two wartime Merchant  Navy veterans, wanted to raise public awareness of both the commitment and the sacrifice  of merchant seafarers during war and conflict. 

Those who served in the “Fourth Service”  during both world wars felt MERCHANT SEAFARERS had been largely unacknowledged  and certainly undervalued for far too many years, especially the Arctic  Merchant Navy Veterans.

A new national lobby, on behalf of merchant  seafarers, could challenge the Government, and others, towards greater  awareness of our maritime heritage and the contribution of merchant seafarers  and fishermen in achieving the freedoms this country still enjoys. 

“It  could not have been achieved without them”!

The Merchant Navy Association (MNA) was “launched”  in 1989 and established a unique opportunity for seafarers to get together to form  a countrywide consensus on a range of issues and ideas.  It was something that should have been  initiated many years before that date but has now made significant progress towards  appropriate recognition and acknowledgement of the needs of the seafaring  community.

The MNA has set a “steady course”,  sometimes through troubled waters, but is now a registered charity with a good  measure of success but with much more to achieve. 

Our Constitution includes a range of  objectives, supported by the Charity Commission, for welfare and advice to the  seafaring community both ashore and afloat.   We remain consistent with those early objectives and sensitive to the  current needs of the seafaring community as we also continue to raise awareness  of our maritime heritage and the opportunities for work in the maritime  sector. 

Today 95% of everything you see in the shops  arrives by sea in ships and in all weathers, every day.  The UK is still a major world centre of  expertise in the maritime sector for ship-broking, insurance and legal services  contributing £26.5 billion to the UK’s GDP.  Port facilities are being expanded with new  and deeper berths for ever larger ships.

I hope you will take something from what  you see here today and support all our seafarers, our campaigns and our  fundraising activities. 

Yours aye,

Capt J  M R Sail MNM MNI             MNA  National Chairman