CEO blog

August is generally the time for holidays in the UK; but not this year! My colleagues and I are exceedingly busy preparing for the forthcoming 25th Anniversary Conference at London (AGM) on 31 August and 1 September, which at the time of writing is just 21 days away. By the way, you can book right up until a couple of days before the event. As our slogan for the event says, three iconic venues, one great Conference – and the event is relevant to both small craft as well as commercial surveyors. I had the pleasure of visiting all three venues last week to check and make the final arrangements and I was reminded of the sense of history each of these three venues provides and am delighted with the original choices. Those who choose to attend the various events are in for an interesting and full on couple of days with some great networking opportunities too. Videos will be released after the event of the presentations.

Continue reading “25th Anniversary Conference and AGM are upon on”

To say the last couple of weeks have been interesting and eventful would be an understatement to say the least.

Let me deal with the Brexit issue, as I have been repeatedly asked what it means for UK surveyors in particular in the past few days. The simple truth s that there is nothing or IIMS can say other than we will monitor as things develop in  the coming months. Until a new Prime Minister is elected it is impossible to know what the time frame for departure from the EU will be. But it seems clear that nothing will happen of note that will impact on surveyors probably for a couple of years.

Continue reading “Brexit, Seawork and all that”

Something very special took place last week. Like many millions of people in the UK, I grew up with deep respect for the RNLI, the world renowned, charitable organisation that keeps the coast of this country safe and saves the lives of those who get into trouble at sea. The brave and exceptional work they do through volunteers who crew their fleet is legendary as well as their work on boat yards.

So having admired the work of the RNLI it was rather humbling to be able to take a group of nearly 30 IIMS members to visit their head office and build/refit facility at Poole in Dorset last week. Several things took me by surprise. The sheer size of the RNLI operation is impressive, spread over a large area. The cleanliness and efficieny of the boatbuilding and workshop areas is extraordinary. This is a thoroughly modern, state-of-the-art facility and one that any similar organisation could learn a great deal from. As RNLI Director, Angus Watson said, the RNLI facility is light years away from the boat yards he worked in not so many years ago. Continue reading “Modern ‘boat yards’ have moved on”

So as we approach the mid point of 2015 – time for an update?

There are a number of activities that I would like to touch on in this blog. In particular, I am proud of the work we have done recently with IMCA to bring the ‘world class’ CMID accreditation scheme successfully to market from 1 June. We now have our first two accredited CMID vessel inspectors with a further forty or so in the pipeline. It is a progressive and encouraging start.

It was exciting to reveal the IIMS London Conference 2015 speaker programme recently and I have been delighted by the initial feedback from members. I am so pleased that Nick Sloane, the man behind the parbuckling project on the Costa Concordia, has agreed to speak; but he is one of a number of excellent speakers and the conference will cover a multitude of topics. Particular thanks go to DGS Marine Group and Constellation Marine Services for their generous support and sponsorship.

Continue reading “Nearly half way through the year”