On September 11th Canada Branch arranged celebration party in Vancouver for the students taking exams this year along with potential future ICS students.

Party was well attended and presented great opportunity for the students to network. We would like to thank Kay Afghahi (Pacific Basin) for organizing this event.

ICS Canada Branch  congratulates Nicole Wilson (Fednav, Montreal) on earning distinction on Shipping Business exam. Well done, Nicole!

 

Start of a new academic year

 

Controlling Council

This year Controlling Council will be held in Dubai 3^rd – 5^th November. It is likely that we will combine two days of workshops as well as the Council meeting.

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.  The cost for Controlling Council to meet should be around GBP 35,000. In Vancouver we spent over GBP 5,000 extra due late booking of flights and changes to hotel numbers.

Therefore, all branches were requested to indicate to us before 31^st July 2014 who will be their chosen representative to this meeting in November. As it stands today, we still await confirmation from over ten branches.

Whilst I understand that branches have elections for various positions (including the Controlling Council representative)  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.

We are currently planning to target our workshop time to look at three keys areas;

1. Branch support – what can we do to help branches, branch governance, branch events
2. Development of some form of international company supporter/member
3. Overall Institute governance – where do our byelaws work/ not work, what further updates do we wish to have to the governance handbook, election processes etc.

As I mentioned above, we will work together with your Controlling Council representatives to finalise the agenda.

 

Executive Council and deadline for membership applications

 

Executive Council will be held via video conference on Monday 22^nd September. Therefore, the deadline for membership applications is Friday 5^th September.

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.

This will only give your students four weeks to complete their membership applications after their results are issued. We’ll be sending all PQE completing students a membership form with their exam results.

 

Possible Fellows – We want to encourage those members who are eligible for Fellowship to consider election to this level. Please look around your branches to see if you have suitable Members who may wish to be put forward. Don’t forget, the next election is just over two months away!

 

Results 2014 – April

As you may have read in TradeWinds (we’re delighted we made it into the maritime press!), and on our website, the exam numbers were record breaking this year. It has been a demanding few weeks as we have entered, checked and confirmed marks for students. And then started the process of producing results lists. David Barrett has already asked branches if they wish to have an individual list of students’ results sent, please do let him know.

To ensure we are as accessible to students as possible, the head office will be open from 8am till 7pm from Thursday 7^th August until Friday 15^th August.

 

Result drinks

There are student results day drinks happening in a few places on Thursday 7^th August including London, Scotland and Rotterdam. Is your branch willing to host a few drinks of students who want to celebrate/ need to drown their sorrows?  It doesn’t need to cost very much of your branch funds – in the case of London, the branch is partnering with a local teaching organisation, all students and members have been invited, it’s a cash bar  and the branch will stump up the cash for a few bowls of chips.

 

AGM and prize giving

The AGM and prize giving has been scheduled for Friday 24^th October. Please work within your branches to find people who can attend this important meeting.

 

Shipping Network submissions

The deadline for submissions for our December issue is 31^st October 2014.

You can send your submissions to Carly directly – editor@ics.org.uk

Our Executive Council were interested in publishing Shipping Network six times per year (instead of four). If we want to invest in publishing more often, then we need to know what subjects your members wish us to cover. Please feedback anything you hear from members good or bad, about interesting or less interesting articles we’ve published in the past and what they’d like to see more of!

We would like to make our magazine accessible, and one way to do this is to allow it to be read electronically. As we investigate iPad and kindle options, please follow this link to see how we would like to display the magazine in via our website. Your thoughts are very much welcomed.

http://www.calameo.com/read/0001302450c1459ecaf81?authid=aNlyjLob05fI

 

Branch documentation

Some branches have been struggling with submitting the correct documentation to the head office on time.

There are two documents that are required by our byelaws to be submitted.

1. Annual Accounts – submitted in draft form by 30^th June and audited/ finalised by 30^th September. We are happy to help supply a template for your accounts if you’d like assistance.
2. Branch rules.

There are two documents that are essential to the running of the Institute.

1. AGM minutes (draft form) within 30 days of your AGM.
2. Minutes of meetings when you elect your Controlling Council Representative (if this happens outside of the AGM).

Finally, there are documents that would be useful

1. Minutes of your branch committee meetings.
2. Your planned schedule of events for the forthcoming year.
3. Your branch news letter (if you produce one) – more on this later in this email.

We understand the burden of administration on branches, so please prioritise the first two documents.

 

Reconciliation payments

Reconciliation and payments with branches which collect funds on our behalf was quite late in the financial year last year. We had hoped that the new database would allow us to speed up this process, but the move to a new system causes unexpected glitches and slowed us down. We hope this year we have ironed out all the issues, and we will be working together with branches to follow this schedule of reconciliation and payments.

  

The Institute of Chartered Shipbrokers – Canada Branch

Chairman’s Report

June 2014

 

 

Another summer brings to a close another fiscal year for the Canada Branch. The Institute as a whole has continued to be tight on costs to try to ensure an annual surplus. Last year, the surplus was used prudently but positively in the new hire of a full time Head of Membership in the Head Office. Something that we can all agree will help in hopefully further promoting member benefits. In addition, key meetings are again being held in a face-to-face capacity once annually.

 

London continues to overhaul the study material for the exams, revising and updating course material and publishing new editions of the course books. The hard work is paying off as we had another banner year for student registration with over 2600 students sit almost 6500 papers in 110 centres around the world. In Athens alone, almost 330 students wrote exams. In addition to the traditional exam centres, papers were also written in places like Mogadishu, Beirut, Shetland Islands, Caracas, Bermuda, Rio de Janeiro, Vladivostok and Baku. The increasingly diverse geographical spread, and the fact that some countries hosted multiple exam centres, suggests that our professional certification remains critical to industry practitioners.

 

Due to the growing demand, London has mandated that we will experiment with a second exam session this year in November. In this initial ‘trial’ run, exams will be limited to a total of 7 subjects with exams being held in a maximum of 50 centres globally – of which, Canada intends to be one.

 

Locally, we have had another strong year. We have a small deficit of just over $2400, over last year due in large part to the Controlling Council event we hosted in September last year. That said, we have still have a current account surplus of CAD 14,660 so remain in a stable and strong financial position.

 

The big event for this year was of course the Controlling Council meetings held in September last year. This was a big honour for the Branch and helped to introduce us to the wider ICS community. We received a lot of positive feedback from both Head Office as well as representatives from the 28 branches in attendance. It was without question, a huge success and set the bar very high for all Controlling Council meetings to follow. I would like to extend a very big thank you to my Vice Chair Dena Rantz who was instrumental in making the event such a success and to Peter Amat for putting our name forward to host the event.

 

Our seminars are still a priority for the Board and we are always endeavoring to host talks on subjects that are both relevant and interesting to our Members and the community as a whole. This past year we hosted two seminars in Vancouver, the first on BC Gas Exports and LNG Shipping in October. This was presented by Christian Waldegrave and Craig Jackson both of Teekay. Our second seminar was last month on the topic of the new ECA Fuel Emission Regulations for 2015 given by Tony Brewster of Marine Petrobulk. Both events were well attended and ran with the same luncheon format as we usually use. On the social side of things, our bi-annual Pub Nights continue to be popular and well-attended events

 

In addition to the local events in Vancouver, our East Coast Branch Director Julian Hung has been busy in Montreal, hosting a Pub Night, two movie nights and two lunch seminars. These events were well attended and will no doubt only become more popular as Julian continues to establish more of an ICS presence there. We thank Julian for his efforts and contributions in arranging these events on his own. It is important for us to have a presence coast-to-coast and we’re lucky to have such an active East Coast Director.

 

I am also happy to report that our website continues to be maintained by both Andriy and is becoming the useful tool we hoped it would be. All presentations given by our seminar speakers are placed on the website as well as announcements for upcoming events. We are also slowly building the Member Database on the site to allow Members to find and contact each other. All of this is with the aim of adding value to our membership.

 

Membership numbers continue to be strong; at the end of 2014 we had 28 Fellows, 36 Members, 6 Life and 11 Retired. Student registration will be addressed further in Jon’s report but due to the Board’s efforts, our numbers continue to grow.

 

Looking at the year ahead, we intend to host a one-day conference in the Fall. We will be concentrating on the dry bulk market with speakers representing all vessel sizes as well as different commodities with the focus on forecasting the market predictions for the year ahead. The aim is to have this become a calendar staple and we hope to eventually attract attendees from across North America. We will be making a big push for this event and will be charging accordingly so this will become a money making venture for us.

 

Beyond that, we will continue to push London to focus their attentions towards working on member benefits and we will do the same locally. Any small advantages we can give our members, be it hotel or restaurant discounts, will be considered and hopefully some adopted in the near future.

 

Last but not least, I would like to thank outgoing Board Member Ruan DeSouza and Jon Ciobanu for their many contributions and hard work in the running of the Canadian Branch. Ruan has been on the Board for almost 10 years and his efforts will be sorely missed.

 

Finally, I would like to extend sincere thanks to all the Board members and Renae and Mariam for their support and assistance during my final year as Chair and I wish the incoming Chair all the best in the year ahead.

 

Best Regards,

 

Sarah Gilbert

Dear ICS members,

 

Since we are in the shipping industry we undoubtedly think of those seafarers who spend many month at sea away from their homes and families.

The International Sailor’s Society – Canada (ISSC), is a national charity who provide support to those facilities in various port across the country who are involved with the welfare of seafarers.

Past Chairman of the ISSC, later this month, along with ISSC Directors, Bonnie Gee from the Chamber of Shipping and Andrew Mayer from the Port of Prince Rupert, will travel to the U.K. to participate in the “Three Peaks Challenge”.

Peter Swanson, Bernard LLP

Bonnie Gee, Chamber of Shipping

Andrew Mayer, Port of Prince Rupert

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is a sponsored fund raising event organised by the Sailor’s Society in the U.K during which teams will climb each of the highest peaks in England,  Scotland and Wales in 24 hours.

 

So far the ISSC team have raised over $6,000 and can certainly use all of your help in reaching their goal to raise $20,000 this year for the ISSC.  Attached is the sponsorship/donation form for the challenge and also below is a link to the team page with the Sailors Society at https://www.justgiving.com/teams/ThreePeaksTeams (note that donations via this webpage will go directly to the UK organization and will later be reimbursed to us in Canada)

 

For more information on the event or to donate to our account directly, visit our website at www.sailorssociety.ca.

 

Thanks for your support!

Three Peaks Challenge Sponsorship Form

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 4^th – 6^th 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 31^st 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 23^rd May. Therefore, the deadline for membership applications is Thursday 8^th 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 18^th 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 10^th 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;

1. Introduction to Shipping
2. Economics of Sea Transportation and International Trade
3. Legal Principles in Shipping Business
4. Shipping Business
5. Liner Trades
6. Logistics and Multimodal Transport
7. Dry Cargo Chartering

• Exams will probably be held 24^th – 27^th 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 6^th May, you must inform us immediately.

 

AGM and prize giving

 The AGM and prize giving has been scheduled for Friday 24^th 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 30^th April 2014.

The deadline for submissions for our September issue will be 31^st July 2014.

You can send your submissions to Carly directly – editor@ics.org.uk

 

 

Message from the Chair

 

 

Dear Students,

 

I would like to personally congratulate you on recently completing your Institute of Charterers Shipbrokers examinations. Having sat them myself not too long ago, I understand well the challenge of these exams and commend you on setting yourself this task. You will receive your results in August, but for now please accept my congratulations on behalf of the Canada Branch.

 

Whether you wrote your first exam or your last, you are well on your way to becoming a Member of the Institute and I look forward to welcoming to you to this esteemed group at some point in the future. Your hard work and dedication is well recognized, and we trust that the knowledge you gain with these exams will continue to serve you well in your maritime career.

 

 

I wish you all the best in your future endeavours.

 

Sincerely,

Sarah Gilbert, Chair

 

Institute of Chartered Shipbrokers – Canada Branch

 

 

 

The Institute of the Chartered Shipbrokers, Canada Branch is pleased to present:

The Seafarer and the Maritime Labour Convention

Speakers:

Captain Mladen Bozhinov

MICS, MNI, Master Mariner, Nautical Surveyor (NI Certified) 

Jean-Marie Fontaine

Partner, Borden Ladner Gervais LLP

 

 Date: Wednesday, May 14 2014

Time: 12:00 hours—14:00 hours

Location: Office of Borden Ladner Gervais Suite 900-1000 de La Gauchetière Street West Montréal, Québec

Sandwiches and drinks will be served.

The Seafarer and the Maritime Labour Convention Seminar Flyer

Emissions Control Areas and the 2015 Regulations
Keynote Speaker:
Tony Brewster
Marine Petrobulk
Date: Thursday, May 22 2014
Time: 12:00 hours—13:00 hours
Location: Bentall V Conference Room, 550 Bentall Centre
(ground level in the covered pedestrian arcade)
Sandwiches and drinks will be served.

Emissions Control Areas and the 2015 Regulations Flyer

Canada Branch invited industry professionals, Institute Students, Members and Fellows in Vancouver on November 28th for traditional Christmas Pub Night. This year event was kindly sponsored by Pacific Northwest Ship and Cargo Services. Canada Branch President Mrs. Sarah Gilbert welcomed all guests and presented Certificates for the new ICS Members Mr Peter Swanson (Bernard & Partners), Mr. Daryl Raibl (CTL Westrans),  Alexander Bollhorn (Pacific Basin). Peter Amat (Pacific Basin) was honored with ICS Fellow Certificate. Fundrising for the local Mission to the Seafarers was sponsored by Port Metro Vancouver through the gift basket raffle.

Canada Branch welcomed ICS Students, Members, Fellows and industry professionals in Montreal for the Pub Night.

It was fabulous peaceful evening. While it was cold and snowing outside the Hurley’s Pub venue was very warm and welcoming.

Event was well attended by our colleagues from Fednav International, Canfornav, CSL, MSC, Rio Tinto, V Ships, Brisset Bishop and others.

We also raised about $100 for the Mariners House !

ICS Canada Branch would like to thank Youth of Shipping and WISTA for generously forwarding the invite to their members.

Special thanks to ICS Director Julian Hung for organizing this event.