Educating new surveyors


We have talked endlessly in the past couple of years about the route into marine surveying for younger surveyors. This remains a topic for hot debate and no-one can come up with a watertight, guaranteed solution. However, the two IIMS Professional Qualifications in Large Yacht & Small Craft and Commercial Ship marine surveying remain popular and a good starting point for many.


The IIMS course content (now an award winning programme) is undoubtedly amongst the finest material available anywhere in the world on the subject of marine surveying. The content is constantly being modified, updated and refreshed. A new module has been released for those who work in the area of surveying steel narrowboats. It was humbling that our significant activities in this area were recognised recently when the International Maritime Club gave their Award for Excellence to IIMS as the leading maritime training provider. Some accolade and one we are justly proud of.


The intake this year has been fair, until October when we attracted almost 30 new students into the course. No one can recall having such a large intake ever before.


Publishing and communications


The Institute continues to work very hard to deliver meaningful, pertinent and entertaining communications for its members and others engaged in the marine sector through a variety of channels and media.


These days the jewel in the crown would appear to be this very publication, the quarterly Report Magazine. It is one of the aspects


of my job I very much enjoy. The search for meaningful and relevant editorial content is exhaustive. Getting the right balance between the various marine surveying disciplines is a constant battle. Commissioning experts in various fields to share their knowledge is ultimately rewarding. Hearing from members how much they enjoy reading it is wonderful. My thanks to Craig Williams who designs and interprets the words in such a professional way.


The series of handy guides has now reached sixteen and there are more waiting to be brought to market and published. We have sold hundreds of copies of the various guides and they are well received in the market place.


Our social media presence continues to bear fruit. We have over 1,300 followers on Twitter and broadcast tweets most days of the week to that audience. Our LinkedIn discussion group is now well over 1,000 individuals, including some influential organisations and people. We have continued to build our video library via the IIMS Marine Surveying YouTube channel. Currently there are over 100 videos made at various locations, events and conferences, all free to watch.


We now publish and maintain 15 web sites. Astonishing. But still iims.org.uk is the main site. If you do not visit it regularly, you are missing out. There are two landmarks to report. Firstly we have just published our one thousandth story on the site; and secondly the site attracted over 18,000 unique visitors last month – a record.


Membership


Camella Robertson replaced Jan Cox, who retired at the start of the year, as Membership Secretary and has proved to be popular. Over the past year membership has grown once again and we are now at our highest ever level of full members


with around 600. The area of biggest growth has been in the Technician member category. This is largely as a result of the work we are doing with the RMCI and eCMID programmes through the Marine Surveying Academy.


In the past few weeks we have embarked on a strategy to target and attract new members to the Institute. The work we have done with our specialist below the line digital marketing agency has paid handsome dividends with the Professional Qualifications


Training seminars, workshops and conferences


One way and another, 2017 will go down as a busy and memorable training year. We kicked the year off with two days of Recreational Craft Directive training in the UK. A visit to the Royal Huisman superyacht yard in northern Holland was an eye-opener and a privilege for all those who attended. Our annual visit to Palma for the Western Mediterranean Large Yacht & Small Craft Working Group (LYSCWG) was a success as were the Scottish LYSCWG in November and the ‘Super’ training event at Portsmouth. Our afternoon session run at Seawork by the Small Craft Surveyors Forum (of which IIMS is a keen and active participant) was very well attended. We have attracted some great and competent speakers over the year, who have willingly shared their extensive knowledge with delegates.


In mid-year, we


organised a highly successful joint IIMS and eCMID Conference and Seminar in Singapore. If I have one sadness this year, however, it was the very low turnout at the IIMS London Conference. The content delivered over the two days was quite excellent according to those who were present, but not enough


The Report • December 2017 • Issue 82 | 27


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