News Bulletins

Last week, the IIMS Annual General Meeting 2018 took place at Heathrow Airport near London. This year we streamed the event live and attracted a good online presence. The AGM is always a time to reflect as well as to look ahead and the term ‘out with the old and in with the new’ springs to mind! I refer of course to the changing of the IIMS Presidents this year, always a symbolic moment. On behalf of members and myself I would like to personally thank Adam Brancher for his work as President over the past two years. He has done a sterling job and he has been required to do a bit more than previous Presidents due to circumstances; and I am grateful to him. I bid Capt Zarir Irani a warm welcome as your new President.

It was heartening to see those eligible to vote overwhelmingly accepting the proposal to develop a non-mandatory accreditation scheme for IIMS members. My colleagues and I will now look in earnest to better understand what this might look like and start to develop a framework.

View the bulletin to continue reading: News-Bulletin-July-2018 (pdf format) or click to read it in e-reader format.

A busy month completed and another one looms. Yes, June sees the IIMS 2018 Annual General Meeting being held by Heathrow Airport, London on 26 June. For the first time, we are streaming the AGM, which is free to attend, live. I urge you to read my CEO AGM Report ahead of the meeting as it gives details on some of the important activities you are being asked to vote on and to register your vote subsequently if you are a full Member. There are some important matters that I hope you will be of sufficient concern to engage you in this process. Full details of how to do that and how to get involved with the AGM are included in this news bulletin. Remember, it is your Institute and you can help to shape our future.

I alluded to May being a busy month and it was. As you know, I relish the chance to meet members. Both the recent tonnage measurement and Certifying Authority training days gave me ample opportunity to greet a number of members. Hard on the heels of these two events was the third eCMId AVI seminar, which we presented and held close to London. It was a great success and once again highlights the Institute’s ability to get involved in some key, associated industry sectors through its subsidiary, the Marine Surveying Academy, which is continuing to grow in stature and importance.

View the bulletin to continue reading: News-Bulletin-June-2018 (pdf format) or click to read it in e-reader format

Rules and regulations – love them or hate them – seem to be very much the flavour of this month. The three recent ones I’d like to draw your attention to particularly and mention in a bit more detail in this news bulletin are the looming EU General data protection Regulation, International Maritime Organization’s strategy on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from ships and the new Yacht Code under development by the Red Ensign Group. And whilst not all three launch this month, it is the fact that such diverse bits of regulation should be in the news together reminding me of the wide range of skills a marine surveyor needs to master (or at least have a grip on) as business knowledge combines with technical knowledge and maritime regulation to potentially create the perfect storm.

Let me start with the new EU General data protection Regulation (GDPR) that comes into force on 25 May. Quite simply, it is a major overhaul on the way a business gathers, stores and uses personal data. In view of the recent Facebook revelations that have shaken the world, most would say this is a good thing. Importantly, however, it is not just EU based organisations that will need to comply.

View the bulletin to continue reading: News Bulletin May 2018 (pdf format) or click to read it in e-reader format

The past month has been an eventful one, to say the least. When is that ever not the case? There have been a number of key deadlines, preparation for the quarterly management board meeting and training seminars to prepare and deliver. Whoever said deadlines did not focus one’s mind?

It has been great to get out and meet IIMS members and a number of non-members too both in Baltimore at the IIMS North American two day Conference held at MITAGS, as well as at what turned out to be a truly informative one day course entitled ‘How to conduct a complete mast and rigging survey’, expertly delivered by Kim Skov-Nielsen in Southampton. Full reports on both events can be found elsewhere in this news bulletin.

We are delighted to welcome five new members from South Korea and there is an article about them written by IIMS member, Peter Broad. There is also news about the sale of Geoff Waddington’s business as our Deputy Vice President seeks a quieter surveying life in semi-retirement in Portugal.

View the bulletin to continue reading: News Bulletin April 2018 (pdf format) or click to read it in e-reader format.

The IIMS means different things to its many members, but two areas where I think the Institute can really make a positive impact are in the area of raising surveyor standards globally and training. Whilst raising standards is a desirable goal, it needs a bit more thinking time still. However, the training plan that has come together for 2018 is, I believe, remarkable and full of impact.

The formation of an IIMS Inland Waterways Working Group is an important step and development – their first training event takes place in April – through to the IIMS Conference in Sydney in early August; or the 24 hour Marine Surveying International fest 2018, or the eCMId seminar in London in May perhaps? There really is something in the coming months for surveyors practising in most areas of the business. I hope you will choose to get involved as the year progresses.

View the bulletin to continue reading: News Bulletin March 2018 (pdf format) or click to read it in e-reader format.

The marine year got off to a troubled and sombre start. I am referring to the tragic accident and substantial loss of life and potential environmental meltdown caused by the collision between the Iranian owned tanker MV Sanchi and the Hong Kong-flagged cargo ship CF Crystal, leading to the subsequent sinking of the former. That such a shocking event can still occur in 2018 seems hard to understand. It is not known yet if the cause will ever be discovered. What can we learn from this awful incident?

So, continuing on a downbeat theme, news has reached me of the death of two well respected, senior IIMS full members. New Zealand Surveyor, Terry Reynolds MIIMS, tragically lost his life in a work-related incident at the end of 2017. Another tragedy has recently resulted in the death of Peter Green MIIMS. Although located in Germany, Peter spent a good deal of his time surveying in Spain and the Balearic Islands and was well known in that area.

View the bulletin to continue reading: News Bulletin February 2018 (pdf format) or click to read it in e-reader format.

December was an interesting month in the ever-evolving world of IIMS. The phrase ‘all change’ springs to mind once more. A planned and fairly major office move was successfully undertaken. All staff have moved to new offices – the administration team coming together in one space and also the same for the accounts team too. You can read more details elsewhere in this bulletin. All in all I am pleased with the outcome and believe it makes our way of working friendlier and more efficient.

I would also like to reference the outbound team building day that the head office staff undertook in early December – once again more details can be found elsewhere in this bulletin. The team was set a series of challenges and tasks to overcome, both as a group and also in smaller subsets if they were to achieve their goal. All in all a worthwhile day and we learned a lot about each other.

Happy New Year to you if you are reading this. So what will 2018 hold? Well, I am acutely aware that for some members in certain parts of the world, (and in some specific surveying disciplines), the profession is a tough one and sadly likely to remain so.

View the bulletin to continue reading: News-Bulletin-January-2018 (pdf format) or click to read it in e-reader format.

November. Now where did that go? Ah yes I remember – it vanished in something of a whirl. From one training event and seminar to another. Hugely rewarding for me personally though I have to say and I was delighted to meet so many members, both at the recent UK events and at the UAE Branch Conference over the course of the month. I have learnt a great deal, which for a highly non-technical person such as me is probably a dangerous thing! However, it occurred to me that if I did, then so did our members too. Certainly the positive feedback would suggest that to be the case.

View the bulletin to continue reading: News-Bulletin December-2017 (pdf format)

The month of November is looming large and for IIMS that means a busy month of training, seminars and a Conference too. Yes the coming weeks will see IIMS personnel out and about meeting members from all over the UK and further afield too. I recommend the programme of events we have put together for your benefit over the coming weeks and hope to meet many members at them. And remember if you cannot be there in person, some of the events you can attend in an online capacity using the Zoom option. Full details about the upcoming events can be found elsewhere in this news bulletin.

View the bulletin to continue reading: News Bulletin November 2017 (pdf format)

The IIMS Conference in London, Dinner and the AGM at Regent’s University were successful, but I was saddened by the low number of members who came to London this year. As a consequence, the management board has reassessed the future role of the London Conference and an announcement will be made soon to all members. But for those who did attend, what a treat they had. I personally thought the presentations were relevant and of the highest quality, delivered by people who were both knowledgeable and passionate about their subjects. You can watch any of the 10 new videos that we made over the two days at the IIMS YouTube channel – see elsewhere in this bulletin for details. And what a venue for our Conference dinner. The Churchill Cabinet War Rooms proved to be an inspirational choice much enjoyed by those who attended.

View the bulletin to continue reading: News Bulletin October 2017 (pdf format)

The biggest news this month I have to impart is that Vicky Lawrence has resigned her position as Financial Controller with IIMS. She formally left the organisation on 31st August. Over more than a decade, Vicky, who is well known to many members, has been at the heart of the Institute and has seen it develop from a cottage industry to what it has become today over that time. On behalf of the members, management board and myself, we thank Vicky for what she has done and wish her well for the future. Also it is sad to have to report the departure of Elle Hardham. Elle has run the Professional Qualifications distance learning programme for the past couple of years. We wish Elle good luck.

View the bulletin to continue reading: News Bulletin September 2017 (pdf format)

At the time of writing this column, I am preparing to head to Singapore to host the IIMS and eCMID seminars and as you are reading this News Bulletin, it is possible we will be half way through proceedings. The number of people who plan to turn out across the three days of activities is encouraging – and even more encouraging for me is that only 30% are IIMS members. So I am looking forward to spreading the word about IIMS membership to a Far East audience, many of whom will be unfamiliar with IIMS. It is planned to record some of the Singapore presentations and to release them through the IIMS YouTube channel – more on that soon.

View the bulletin to continue reading: News Bulletin August 2017 (pdf format)