April exams are over, and now we’re looking ahead to November
All over the world, our students are breathing a sigh of relief as the exam period closes. And, likewise, branches and teaching centres, volunteer exam centres and invigilators are also relaxing after the busiest exam period in the history of our Institute.
Here in the head office the process of allocating the examination papers to our examiners has started. As you can see from the image above, we are slowly finding ourselves surrounded by boxes of completed exam papers. It will take about two weeks for all the exam papers to arrive, be counted, checked against hall lists, collated and allocated. Once this is completed, the exams will be sent out to examiners located in about 10 different countries. Luckily, this year, five of the head office staff undertook the logistics exam, so I’m confident they are well prepared for this.
We have 45 examiners, supported by assessors in each subject. This year we welcome a number of new examiners. A key goal for David in our education team is to make sure we grow examiner capacity before we need it. So, he has started a programme of recruiting new examiners, across multiple subjects, who will start this year with just a few exam papers to mark, but will be given the extra support by lead examiners to make sure that by the next exam period they are experienced and confident.
I must also share with you how deeply we were saddened by the news of the loss of Alex Marr. He was a very engaged member of our Institute, a great supporter of our students and had recently volunteered to act as the assessor for the Offshore Support Industry subject.
There is much to update your branches with, so please take note of some of the important events and deadlines in my message below.
Best wishes from all of us in the head office, and for those of you enjoying some time off over Easter, fingers crossed for wonderful weather, wherever you are in the world.
Julie
Julie Lithgow
Director
Institute of Chartered Shipbrokers 85 Gracechurch Street London EC3V 0AA Tel: 020 7623 1111 Fax: 020 7623 8118 www.ics.org.uk
Controlling Council
This year Controlling Council will be held in Dubai 4th – 6th November. It is likely that we will combine a one day international conference, a workshop day and the Council meeting during this time.
The Controlling Council meeting in Vancouver was very useful and productive but last minute travel bookings and changes made it more expensive than we had originally budgeted for.
Therefore, all branches are requested to indicate to us before 31st July 2014 who will be their chosen representative to this meeting in November.
Whilst I understand that branches have elections at different points of the year, it would make the preparation for this meeting much more effective and will ensure we are developing the workshop and meeting agenda with those people who will be attending the actual meeting.
It is vital that when you, as a branch, when choosing your Controlling Council representative you understand their vital role in the governance of this Institute. They must be in a position to represent your branch’s views on all items in the agenda of both the workshop and the meeting. They must also be accountable to your branch to share any pre-meeting information, and post meeting report.
Executive Council and deadline for membership applications
Executive Council will be held here in London on Friday 23rd May. Therefore, the deadline for membership applications is Thursday 8th May.
We do our best to process the applications as quickly as possible, but applications received after the deadline causes delays to all the other applications. We really need branches to help us to get all the applications submitted on time, and the completion of your vetting as swiftly as possible.
The next Executive Council will be a physical meeting, so it will be combined with a one day workshop for Executive Council members. The workshop will cover three key areas, and if you or your branch wish to add to these discussions, please send your comments, thoughts and ideas to Joe Besch – j.besch@ics.org.uk
1. Discussion of the proposed amendments to the Governance handbook including service tenure
- Matching the needs of branch rules against Institute governance
- Do we need to change our governance or bye-laws?
- Are we following our governance and bye-laws correctly?
- Where are the conflicts between our bye-laws and our governance?
- How do we manage the mismatch between length of service at branch committee level/ Controlling Council/ Executive council
2. Supporting members by ‘thinking global and acting local’
- Where do we have retention challenges?
- How can we mitigate these?
- What key membership benefits can be identified as universal?
- What local benefits do branches already offer?
- What membership needs are not being met locally?
- What ‘competition’ do are being experienced from other membership organisations or networking associations?
- How do we involve younger members in branch committees?
3. Future growth
- Where our new ‘markets for students/ members?
- Do we need to review our position on ‘English-only’ examination/ teaching?
- Does this restrict us to market/ publicise ourselves in English only?
- How do we support new initiatives (Taiwan, China, Rotterdam, Mauritius, Turkey – as examples) without local branches?
- How do we ensure older branches are not forgotten about in the rush to go to new markets?
Internal Auditor elections
Due only to a lack of time in the head office, the Internal Auditor elections have been continually delayed. I’m very sorry about this. The election papers will be out to all Controlling Council members by early next week.
It’s a really valuable position, acting as an independent assessor of the policies and procedures running at head office. There are always improvements we can make, and I personally value the input of a member who can bring their experience to the workings of this office.
Federation Council
Federation Council undertook a major survey of all their company members during the last three months. The results will be discussed at the next Federation Council meeting in Cardiff next week. It was clear to us during the survey that we are not always finding the right level, frequency, and length of communication with our company members. Communicate too infrequently – they forget we exist. Communicate too often – we end up looking like spam and ends up unread.
Anything that you wish us to add to the discussion at Federation Council, please send to Nic Ingle – n.ingle@ics.org.uk
Education and Training Committee
The Education and Training Committee will meet on 18th June. At this time of year the Committee usually spend time looking at what went well, or not so well, during the exam period. Any feedback you want to add to these discussion, please send to David Barrett – d.barrett@ics.org.uk
Membership Committee
The Membership Committee usually meets once a year, in London, and the other meetings are held by Videoconference. The Chairman of this committee, Robert Hill, would like to start thinking about other locations for their annual physical meeting. Any volunteers branches – please contact Joe Besch – j.besch@ics.org.uk
We are also reviewing the membership application forms and writing some clear advice for branches on the various membership categories. If you have ideas or suggestions to add to their discussion, please send then via Joe.
The next meeting of this committee will be via videoconference on 10th May.
Exams 2014 – April
As you may have read in TradeWinds (we’re delighted we made it into the maritime press!), Athens over took London as the most popular centre for students sitting the 2014 exams. After coming a close second in 2013, the Greek capital has outstripped London as Greeks flock to the ICS programme.
The continued interest shown in the ICS exams by young shipping professionals reflects the belief that acquiring the right qualifications is more important as ever.
Total candidate numbers in 2014 are the highest yet, with 2,600 students due to take 6,500 exams in 110 centres. In Athens, some 330 students were due to sit the exams, with some taking part in revision sessions held aboard the restored Liberty Ship Liberty Hellas (see image alongside).
Exams were also conducted in places including Mogadishu, Beirut, Shetland Islands, Caracas, Bermuda, Rio de Janeiro, Doula (Cameroon), Vladivostok and Baku.
The increasingly diverse geographical spread, and that fact that some countries hosted multiple exam centres, suggests that professional qualifications remain critical to industry practitioners. Australia hosted five exam centres, South Africa six (as well as supporting centres in Namibia and Zimbabwe) while India will hosted six centres.
The UK saw students sit the exams in 11 centres, from the Shetland Islands to Felixstowe, including London, Southampton, Cardiff, Liverpool, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Middleborough, Hull, Plymouth with 500 students taking over 1,000 exams.
Exams 2014 – November
In a very exciting new stage of the Institute’s life, we are experimenting with a second exam session this year. More information will be sent out over the summer, but key points for you now are;
- We will be limiting the number of exam subjects to;
- Introduction to Shipping
- Economics of Sea Transportation and International Trade
- Legal Principles in Shipping Business
- Shipping Business
- Liner Trades
- Logistics and Multimodal Transport
- Dry Cargo Chartering
- Exams will probably be held 24th – 27th November
- Exams will be held in a limited number of exam centres, with a maximum of 50 centres globally.
- For both Foundation and Advanced diplomas, both subjects must be taken in the same exam period. Therefore we will only be able to offer diplomas in three subjects.
- Exams will be open to both new students and those who wish to re-sit.
Finance
As we approach the end of our financial year we are acutely aware that a positive result depends on overseas branches completing reconciliations in both education and membership, and making all efforts to ensure monies owed are paid in a timely manner.
If you have any concerns that your branch will not be able to complete reconciliation and payments by 6th May, you must inform us immediately.
AGM and prize giving
The AGM and prize giving has been scheduled for Friday 24th October. Please work within your branches to find people who can attend this important meeting.
Shipping Network submissions
The deadline for submissions for our June issue is 30th April 2014.
The deadline for submissions for our September issue will be 31st July 2014.
You can send your submissions to Carly directly – editor@ics.org.uk
