Most weeks at IIMS head office are eventful! But this week has been more eventful than most it has to be said.
After some hiatus with edexcel, the awarding body for the IIMS HNC and HND in Marine Surveying, we finally had a flood of HNC certificates arrive. Well, I am exaggerating slightly. But it was pleasing to be able to forward HNC certificates to half a dozen successful students, the first crop to qualify through this education programme.
On Tuesday I chaired a meeting of the Registered Marine Coatings Inspectors qualification stakeholder’s group. There were 8 of us present and the purpose of the meeting was to evaluate the first pilot course, run at Portchester several weeks ago. It turned out to be a most productive meeting and we are now moving forward to deliver the first course for real from 6-10 December in Amsterdam.
Some weeks ago I had accepted a kind invitation from Roger Daniells, Chairman of the British Association of Cargo Surveyors to attend their luncheon. Thursday arrived and I made the trip to the historic city area of London. The venue was superb, the turnout excellent, fine cuisine and a great place to network. I found myself sitting between two British policemen, one of whom is heading up the soon to be launched marine cargo fraud team. More to come on this subject for sure in the coming months.
The other momentous event this week was the launch of the new IIMS web site. Something of a labour of love on my part, it has taken 5 months from inception to launch. Of course we have encountered the usual minor glitches as one always does with launching a site as complex as this one. Overall though first impressions from people have been hugely positive. The site has been very busy and within just a few days, we had notched up over 1,000 visitors who have come to our web pages.
Oh well just another week in the life of IIMS!
Mike Schwarz