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Minutes of the General Meeting held September 17th, 2008 The
In Attendance:
Alistair Beaton Capt. Ieuan Lampshire-Jones Darryl Martins Cap. Tom McLean Capt. Nelson Ng Cecil Noronha Philip Oldham Richard Smith Ram Sudama Capt. Don Tranter
Mike Blackhurst - Guest
Regrets:
Roy Sluyter
1) Call to
Order:
Alistair Beaton called the meeting to order at 19:15 hours. As the Honorable Secretary was absent at the start of the meeting Richard Smith agreed to record the minutes. The President extended a warm welcome to a guest, Mr. Mike Blackhurst from White Rock, who is considering pursuing a career in surveying. At the request of The President and for the benefit of our guest, Captain Jones gave a brief history of The Association and the reasons for its inception.
2) Agenda:
The proposed agenda for the Meeting was read out by Richard Smith. There were no additions / amendments proposed. 3) Minutes
of Previous Meeting:
Having distributed copies of The Minutes of the previous General Meeting held on May 21st, The President asked that attendees read through them.
A motion to accept the Minutes as distributed was proposed by Philip Oldham and seconded by Ram Sudama. All present voted in favour.
4) Old
Business/Matters arising from the last General Meeting:
Letter to the Chamber of Shipping – Richard advised
that a phone call from a member and further conversation with the
Chamber of Shipping indicated that a list of members has still not been
sent out to that organisation. Richard will take care of this.
Letters to Institutions and Shipping Agents – Phil Oldham asked whether these letters had been sent out as proposed. The consensus was that no such letters had been sent out to date. The
President is to ask the secretary to take care of this as soon as
possible.
5)
Executive Highlights / Director’s Reports:
As the Honorable Treasurer and Membership Director were not present, The President offered a brief verbal summary as follows “to the best of his knowledge”:
(a) Membership – There have been one or two new applications since our last General Meeting. One, Captain John Lewis of Sea-Fire Marine had been received following Captain Lewis’s attendance at our Riverboat Cruise in August. (b) Treasurer – The President reported that following funds are available in each of our bank accounts as follows: a. Chequing Account C$ 2,000 b. ING Direct Savings Account – C$ 5,000 meeting
Captain Jones enquired whether the Treasurer had sent in a cheque for insurance as discussed at the last general meeting. The President responded that he did not know but would ask The Treasurer to ensure this had been done.
Captain Jones suggested that if Directors know in advance that they will not be attending a General Meeting then they should make their reports available to other Board Members who will be attending so that the business of The Association can be properly conducted. He did point out that some unforeseen situations occur where members only find out at the last moment that they could not attend and in these situations this would not always be possible.
Richard asked whether the problems regarding the issuing of Membership Stamps and certificates had been resolved as he was aware that one or two new members had been waiting for an unacceptably long time for these items.
Ram Sudama advised that he was one such member and that he had been advised that this was being taken care of. Richard apologized to Ram on behalf of the Association for the time that this has taken.
6) New
Business:
·
Letter from AIMS (Australian
o The original letter from AIMS regarding Federation was sent out to 14 organisations. o Responses were ultimately received from 12 of those 14. o A.M.S.B.C. responded in favour of the proposal. o Only one group – Scandinavian Independent Marine Surveyors Association (SIMSA) responded negatively. o The next step is to consider § Organisation Structure § Types of Survey Work § Membership Qualification Philosophies § Communications § Location of Inaugural Meeting § Future Progress. o The letter included a questionnaire as Appendix 2 which Richard suggested should be re-sent as a single attachment to all members for their feedback. This questionnaire asks for feedback regarding the items outlined above.
· Following correspondence with the I.I.M.S. (International Institute of Marine Surveying) we have now been asked by this group to become an Affiliate of their Institute and they have sent us a copy of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to be entered into by both the A.M.S.B.C. and I.I.M.S. The contents of this MOU were read into the meeting by Richard Smith and a copy is hereby attached to these minutes as Appendix 1. Richard re-iterated the reasons behind our approach to the I.I.M.S. as follows: o Following the issues surrounding the training and qualifications of Home Inspectors that hit the news early this year, our Board of Directors advised our Membership that one of our major goals this year would be to advance the notion of obtaining “Professional Status” for our profession here in B.C. Rather than waiting for the government to step in and mandate rules and regulations in this regard, as it seems they are destined to in the case of the Home Inspectors, it was felt that we need to be pro-active in self-regulating ourselves to a degree that may ward off any potentially outside intervention. Of prime importance in this regard will be to set up an infrastructure that provides recognised levels and standards in training of Marine Surveyors as well as proof of measured competence (examinations). Currently we have no such requirements in place as a requirement for membership in our Association. To this end, The Board is of the opinion that it would be better to align ourselves with another recognised and well respected organisation that has already produced such training courses and examinations and make these the standards by which our own membership will be measured, As several of our members are already members of I.I.M.S. it was felt that this would be a suitable group for us to approach. Indeed IIMS is growing rapidly and appears to meet our basic criteria of international recognition and respect in the marine community (most notably Marine Underwriters) as well as a wide variety of Training Course and Examination that leads to a Diploma in Marine Surveying. o In many European countries there is already a requirement that Marine Surveyors must be members of a recognised Association before they are allowed to operate. It seems that the I.I.M.S. is one such group that has been approved by administrations and commercial groups in these countries.
o
Richard advised that a meeting has been
set up between the Board of AMSBC and Mr. John Lawrence, the CEO of
IIMS, on the evening of September 18th in
o A general discussion regarding the reasons for entering into the MOU and the possible benefits.
·
Following this discussion a motion was
made by Captain Tom McLean -
‘That the AMSBC accept
the MOU supplied by the IIMS in principal and that the AMSBC enter into
further discussion with IIMS regarding affiliation” This motion was seconded by Captain Don Tranter and a show of hands indicated that all attending members were in favour. As a result the motion is unanimously adopted.
7)
Any
Other Business: · The President reported that The Dinner Cruise aboard the Stern-wheeler “Native” on the evening of August 22nd had been a success and a good time was had by all. A number of guests were in attendance including the President of the B.C. Branch of the Nautical Institute, Captain Andy Patterson, accompanied by his wife and also Captain John Lewis of Sea Fire Training accompanied by his wife. Some “recruiting” also took place on this cruise as The President convinced Captain Lewis to apply for membership in our Association. · Alistair also advised that he will be planning another flight around the harbor in the next few weeks for any members that are interested..
8)
Closing: At 20:20 hours, there being no other business on
the agenda or items to discuss, a motion was made by Philip Oldham
“that the meeting be closed”. This was seconded by Captain Don Tranter and accepted unanimously by a show of hands from all attending members.
These minutes are respectfully prepared and submitted by Richard Smith – Vice President, A.M.S.B.C.
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