* The Regional Fund was shown in 2000/1 as 10418.26, with uncleared cheques to the value of £535.51; however, one of these cheques (for £42) was returned (addressee unknown), thus the Regional fund for the previous year has been increased by £42 and the uncleared cheques decreased accordingly.

At the start of the 2001/2 financial year the regional fund included £1680, thanks to the generosity of the Fisher Memorial Trust over several years. This provided four bursaries of £300 each, awarded to four `young' biometricians, to assist them in attending the IBC in Freiburg in July 2002. With the agreement of the Fisher Trust, the remaining money was put towards a donation of US$1000 which the Region made to a fund used by the IBC organisers to fund biometricians from the developing world to attend that conference. Thus, although on paper there appears to have been an excess of expenditure over income of £834.36 for the region in the financial year, this could be viewed as an excess of income of over £800 to the regional funds. This is a pleasing result, reversing several years of reported deficits of increasing magnitude until the subscription rates were raised.

Postage and regional mailing costs had been rising rather alarmingly, but steps have been taken to decrease this expense considerably, by the use of electronic distribution for those members who have agreed to this format. This will further help the regional funds and also allow an increased frequency of members' mailings if and when it seems to be appropriate. One attempt at including a publisher's insert into the mailing was made early in the year, but the process proved to be fraught with problems and the payment received did not seem to justify the effort.

Three meetings were held during the year: the first (November 2001) was joint with the Biometrika Trust in recognition of the first 100 years of Biometrika, with a net cost to this society of just over £400; the second was a joint meeting with the RSS Research Section for which there was no fee to attend, but the society paid expenses of £500 for one of the three speakers from the US; the Summer Meeting was held at Roslin which netted a small profit to the society of about £65. We do not expect to break even on meetings across the year as most costs (apart from food) come from the remainder of subscriptions available for the region after payment of US dues.

Overall, this has been a satisfactory year for the region financially, and the various steps which have been taken to keep future spending at reasonable levels indicate that no further increase in subscription rates should be necessary in the near future even if the US dues are raised.