President's Report ...

Christophe Grant - President

Introduction

2002 proved a challenging year for COTT. The organisation endured some turbulent times brought on by still too high collection costs, continuing legal fees, hiccups in its succession of management and a serious attempt to put proper accounting procedures in place to arrest spiralling bad debt. That the expense to income ratio stands at some 41% is still a source of aggravation to the Board.

Financial Performance

The financial performance of the organisation continues to be up and down. Delinquency by licencees has escalated, encouraged no doubt by the presence in the market place of the rival TTCO with the expected excuse by users that either they know not who to pay or that they have paid the other body (although using our work) with the accompanying result that legal fees have increased as we move to challenge these infringements by legal action. On the plus side collection costs have been reduced from $254,860 in 2001 to $230,398 in 2002 and professional services are down from $306,092 (2001) to $205,402. There has been some downward movement too in the expense to income ratio from last year's 51% to this year's 41%. The Board is committed however to getting this ratio down in 2003 towards the desired level of 25%. As such there has been a vigilant cost cutting exercise to come to grips with runaway administrative expenses.

New Board

In its annual meeting which was concluded on the 28th November 2002, COTT saw the retirement from its Board of the tireless Paul Trotman and Ann Marie Chadee (who had served the requisite three consecutive terms as allowed by the by-laws) and welcomed in their place Messrs. Lutalo Massimba and Mungal Patasar and Ms. Ella Andall. The other Board members - Earl Crosby, Kenny Phillips (publishers) and Seadley Joseph, Rooplal Girdharie and my goodself (writers) were retained. Ms. Diana Derrick (PRS) and Mr. Terence O'Neil Lewis and Ms. Sonja Dumas (external directors) make up the complement of the Board.

Management

COTT's Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Nicholas Inniss resigned as of the end of September 2002 and the Board was moved to recruit a new Chief Executive Officer by year's end. We were particularly fortunate that the past President, Ms. Allison Demas, returning from her Master's programme in the United States of America, was hired from the 6th January 2003. She brings to the management of COTT vast experience, expertise and knowledge in the area of intellectual property and collective management and has made it her mandate to pursue aggressively COTT's objective of maximising the potential income of its members by executing more direct reciprocal agreements with leading foreign societies as well as expanding the areas for increased licensing including ring tones and the internet.

CCL

The Caribbean Copyright Link Board of Directors held its annual meeting in Ocho Rios, Jamaica on the 20th - 21st March 2002. Mr. Kenny Phillips, Vice-President (COTT) and COTT's Chief Executive Officer Mr. Nicholas Inniss (then Treasurer of CCL) attended. CCL defined its focus at this meeting as (a) improving the listing of regional works in the IPI (internal database) file (b) ensuring more complete and accurate documentation within the SGS database system (c) the establishing of more reciprocal agreements between regional societies and foreign societies. The teething problems experienced in the working of the SGS system were explored and technical assistance offered to remove the kinks in the system. CCL members continue to refine the system and prepare to work within international set standards which could only serve to improve the remittance of returns from foreign countries/societies to the region.

Membership

COTT's membership grew by 130 members during the calendar year. Of this 123 were writer members and seven were publishers. At the end of the year total membership stood at 796 members. During the year COTT lost the Great Honourable Pretender, Alric Farrell, who died on the 21st January 2002. Some of his better known works were "Never Ever Worry", "God Made Us All", "True, True Kaisonian" and "Move Yuh Foot". He was also revered as a master of the extempo arts. May he rest in peace.

Conclusion

COTT is resolute in its intention to control administrative expenses and its accounting procedures to bring back some semblance of sanity to its balance sheet. COTT intends as well to soon move to implement a public education campaign in its drive to enlighten the public and its membership on the rights we administer and an all-embracing anti-piracy campaign. In this quest COTT calls for the continued support of all its members with the war-cry that unity is strength and the caution that a chain is as strong as its weakest link.

Christophe Grant

President