Merchant Navy Medal for Meritorious Service

The Merchant Navy Medal for Meritorious Service is a state award in the within the British honours system. The medal is awarded to no more than 20 recipients annually with the awards being announced on Merchant Navy Day, September 3. The medal was originally awarded by the Merchant Navy Welfare Board 2005-2015 before being superceeded by the state award.

Criteria
The medal may be awarded to those individuals who have served, or are serving in the Merchant Navy or the Fishing fleets of the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islands. These individuals must have show particularly valuable devotion to duty and exemplary service so as to serve as an outstanding example to others. Recipients will typically have given 20 years of good conduct and exemplary service. Annually, only 20 medals will be awarded. Recipients are entitled to use the post-nominal letters of MNM.

Appearance
The obverse of the medal bears the Ian Rank-Broadley effigy of Her Majesty The Queen. The reverse depicts the badge of the Merchant Navy: the letters MN surrounded by a rope joined at the base by a reef knot, a naval crown surmounts the rope. The ribbon of the medal is 1+1/2 in wide made up of equal stripes of green at the edges, white in the centre, with red bordering the white stripe which represent marine navigational lights. The previous medel displayed a portrait of Lord Nelson.