Finance Manager
You will read elsewhere in the magazine that our Finance Manager, Alastair Hill, resigned his position with Dial-a-Cab and left the company on 29th September 2000.
   Alastair had been with us for four years and the contribution that he made was considerable. I believe that he brought a degree of professionalism to the BoM and I for one will miss him, however nothing is forever and we must move forward. A replacement is being considered and an appointment will be made from outside as soon as possible.

Fuel Shortage
As you are all very aware there was a fuel shortage during September which had a marked effect on the taxi service in London and of course, in other parts of the country as well. I was truly amazed at the service you continued to give our account clients and I can only hazard a guess at the amount of time you wasted queuing for fuel.
   If there was any gain to the licensed trade, it was the fact that many people are now aware of the vital importance that the taxi plays in London's transport especially when we deal with members of the public who have special needs.
   The PCO were contacting me twice a day during the dispute to enquire how many vehicles we had working and also regarding our service levels. They in turn were reporting to TfL (Transport for London) who are responsible to the Mayor. The government agreed, towards the end of the dispute, after discussions with TfL that taxis are a priority group and filling stations in and around London would be designated to supply taxis with fuel should the

dispute have continued. In my experience of our trade, this is a first and hopefully bodes well for the future assuming of course that we believe the government!
   During the dispute, we were at times operating with our fleet depleted by 50% but the amazing thing is that at the end of the week, the number of trips we completed were only 2% down on the previous year; there is obviously a moral there somewhere...

End of the Financial Year
Our Financial year finished at the end of August and our surplus will again exceed the £I million surplus for the third successive year, something that has not been achieved by any other radio taxi circuit in the UK for one year let alone three.
   The figures are of course subject to audit, but I find it extremely pleasing to report that Dial-a-Cab has made £4.2m in surpluses over the past four years considering that it had only made £2m surplus in the previous forty three years together - a phenomenal achievement by everyone concerned.
   The foregoing is even more enviable by our competitors when you consider that members subscriptions have not been increased for four years and in fact last year members subscriptions were actually reduced.

2000 AGM
The 2000 AGM will be held on February 4th 2001 at the Hilton Metropole Hotel, Edgware Rd. As the forthcoming AGM is an electable AGM, there may be some of you that might wish to stand for election. Because members now have the added advantage of voting by post and may not be present on the day to hear a prospective candidate's address, I suggest that you might wish to send your photograph and CV to Call Sign in order to help members when they cast their votes. Although your CV and photograph should be included in the November edition of the magazine, your nominations will not have to be returned until a later date which will be advised. The reason your CV should be included in the next edition of the magazine is to give members the opportunity to ask prospective candidates any questions they might have via the pages of Call Sign in later editions. All CV's etc should be returned to the magazine by Monday 16th October for inclusion in the November issue.

Logos
I am delighted to see so many cabs carrying our logo and as our fleet expands more of our accounts will become 'logo only' accounts as defined in the terms of our tender. However, there are some members that are still carrying our telephone number with the prefix 0171, this is very out of date and looks totally out of place. So please ladies and gentlemen, inspect your vehicles and if there are any telephone numbers that are now obsolete, please remove them.

Brian Rice