Letter from the chairman

Rory Peck Award & Trust chairman, Sir John Gunston, marks the passage of the past year

The past year has seen the Award & Trust develop from a cottage charity into something which a number of our committee members now refer to as 'having real legs'. Whatever our physiognomy may be, our achievement has been due to a number of individuals who have been unstinting in giving us their time and assistance, as well as the general support of many of our committee members.

As the Award and Trust has grown over the past year, we have found it necessary to move the office to London to make it more accessible to our committee members and corporate sponsors, as well as alleviating Mrs Rory Peck of the administrative burden. Our thanks go to Mr and Mrs Oliver Smith whose generosity in housing the Award & Trust for our first two years is gratefully acknowledged.

We are tremendously sorry to lose John Mahoney, indisputably our hardest working Trustee. John was responsible for bringing on board many of our new corporate committee members. His advice and experience is greatly missed. We welcome Peter Jouvenal, one of Rory's closest friends and colleagues, in his place. Merlyn Mitchell Cotts has also joined us as our Trust Secretary, and Tina Carr as our Director has brought us solidity. In the short time they have been with us, they have made a significant difference to our operational efficiency.

The work of the Trust has grown substantially over the past year, and we are proud to have been able to make grants to families in Croatia, France and Egypt. In line with the original aim of the Trust, we are actively undertaking inquiries to establish who might have left dependants in need of assistance, and extending and researching a list of all cameramen and women who have lost their lives whilst covering news.

The problem of insurance for freelancers continues to occupy us, and we are pursuing the establishment of an affordable and accessible insurance scheme for freelancers. The role of the Trust is that of an honest broker, facilitating any benevolent scheme that may succeed. There is evidently an encouraging and growing awareness of this issue within the industry, and we aim to assist in bringing the various interested parties together, to effectively taking this important and much needed issue further.

Similarly, as the Trust develops this role, it is looking to establish links with institutions and companies whose services would be beneficial to both freelancers and the charity. Safety is obviously a key issue to cameramen and women, and our association with AKE Ltd is the first of what we hope will be a number of similar arrangements.

We are extremely happy that Sony Broadcast and Professional, UK & Europe, continue to support us. It is a natural marriage considering that the majority of our entries were shot on Sony equipment and we look forward to furthering our association with Sony in the future. It is clear that the Award and Trust is an effective platform for other equipment suppliers and there is room for similar associations. This unique position is clearly recognised by our many advertisers. Their support is an extremely important source of revenue and we acknowledge their generous assistance by asking you to use their services where appropriate.

BBC World and CNN International will again be broadcasting programmes based around the entries for this year's Award. The excellence and impact of their programmes last year was crucial in raising the profile of the Award & Trust, for which we are very grateful. This year we welcome MSNBC and NHK to our valued and important group of broadcasters.

The Coyte family must be thanked for their generosity and kindness in making donations applicable to the Trust in memory of their late father, Kenneth Coyte, Chairman and Chief Executive of WTN. We are also grateful to the Dulverton Trust for their splendid endowment.

Events over the past year have been overshadowed by the death in the Comoros Island aircrash of Mohammed Amin, one of the world's greatest freelance cameramen and a valued committee member. His close friend and colleague, Michael Buerk, pays tribute to him in this programme.

Our committee has been strengthened by the addition of ABC News, ARD, Broadcast, Fuji TV, Journeyman Pictures, NBC, NHK, RAI, RDF, Reporters Sans Frontiers, RTE, Sveriges Television, ZDF. Others have joined in an individual or corporate capacity, namely Nart Bouran, Lucian Hudson, Sue Inglish, Vicky Knighton, Michael Jackson, Nobuyuki Nose, David Lloyd, Sue Lloyd-Roberts, Colin Peck, Hugo Swire, and Rick Thompson.

We are sorry to see the departure of Michael Grade, Keiichi Kikuchi, Mike O'Driscoll and Stephen Springer from the committee, and we wish them all well in their new ventures.

A very big thank you to all those attending tonight. Your support over the past three years has been crucial in making the Rory Peck Award & Trust a meaningful reality. Long may we do justice to your faith and continue to do service to those we celebrate and commemorate tonight.

John Gunston