January 7 2005

Dear Member

I am writing to let you know that the Academy has decided to place a cap of 6500 on its worldwide voting membership, effective immediately. This decision follows many months of discussion and assessment by Council and its various sub-committees, and with the boards of BAFTA/LA and East Coast, on how best to manage the membership base in light of an enormous increase in membership applications over the past four years.

The cap on voting membership will not affect the status or benefits of existing members who will be entitled, as before, to renew their membership at the end of each membership year.

The rapid growth in membership applications has been fuelled by a number of factors. First, as the international recognition of our Awards ceremonies has grown in recent years, so has interest in membership of the Academy amongst a wide cross-section of our industries. Pleasingly, this cross-section includes a large number of younger members, resulting in a more representative match with our industries than ever before. Secondly, the duties and benefits of membership have grown considerably, with access to more screenings and events and a parallel increase in the number of film distributors sending screeners at voting time as reminders of their work. This combination of increased recognition for our educational work and enhanced membership activity is a satisfactory outcome following several years of hard work by many people involved with the Academy, and we are proud of this achievement.

The resulting growth in membership brings with it many opportunities and some constraints. We have been given the chance to consider the Academy's ideal makeup at the same time as focussing on its ideal size. It has always been our desire to grow our membership in technical areas, and we feel as though we now have the opportunity to be more proactive in this regard. Furthermore, the debate surrounding the screener problems of last year made us more aware of the comparative size of other international academies. You may know that the American Academy has already capped its membership at 6000.

We have concluded that our strength as an Academy comes not just from the collective expertise of our voting members, but also from our ability to have an effective debate within our ranks. We feel that 6500 is the biggest we should be. The cap will allow us to fine-tune our voting membership, with achievement and expertise always paramount but with more attention paid to areas in which we feel we are under-represented. The 6500 voting members will be allocated to match the current distribution, with 5000 from the Academy and its nations and regions, and 1500 from BAFTA/LA and BAFTA East Coast.

Since our membership is already close to the limit, new UK applications will be held back until September, following annual renewals in July, when we will know how many membership places are available. Allocations of new UK memberships will in future be made according to the recommendations of the sector committees - film, television, children's, interactive - who will also take into account the needs of the UK nations and regions. The cap is in place until further notice, but will be reviewed and monitored over the coming months and particularly at the time of renewals each summer. The cap does not cover non-voting categories of membership within our branches and affiliates in the nations and regions of the UK and in the US, and additional non-voting categories may be introduced.

I hope you agree that this is a positive step at a good time for the Academy, and I am confident that your membership will be enhanced by it. I look forward to seeing you shortly in the nearly re-roofed and almost re-furbished 195 Piccadilly.

Yours sincerely

Duncan Kenworthy
Chairman