Thanks for looking, Ken.
As to the cost and the snide comments about EU etc., keep the
following in mind:
- the agency I work for receives not a cent of taxpayer money. We are
entirely financed by the fees companies pay us to register their
trademarks and do not need any money from Brussels. In fact, we have
the opposite problem: last year we made a profit of ca. 60 million
Euro on a turnover of about 200 million, and the accumulated surplus
is something like 300-400 million (from the past decade or so). We
have just (effective May 1st) cut the fee to register a trademark from
1600 to 900 Euro, which should help reduce future surpluses. However,
we are not free to decide our prices, this must be approved by the
Commission in Brussels, a process which is laborious and politically
tricky.
- while the office does subsidize various activities, it does not mean
that they are free. We paid 50 Euro per head for a 5-hour trip, which
is reasonable (it included lunch) and as Ken says, chartering a boat
like this is not horribly expensive.
So I can assure Eurosceptic taxpayers that none of your money went
into this :-)
Cheers,
Nathan
Nathan Wajsman
Alicante, Spain
http://www.frozenlight.eu
http://www.greatpix.eu
http://www.nathanfoto.com
Books: http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/search?search=wajsman&x=0&y=0
PICTURE OF THE WEEK: http://www.fotocycle.dk/paws
Blog: http://www.fotocycle.dk/blog
On Jun 22, 2009, at 5:42 PM, Ken Norton wrote:
> I grew up sailing and being on and around water. Seeing Nathan's
> sailing
> pictures brought back many memories.
>
> Chartering a boat, like that, really isn't all that expensive. Much
> less
> expensive than trying to own anything larger than a "SunFish".
>
> AG
> --
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