Welcome to IBIA’s July newsletter: Big squad of players needed for Association’s season ahead

Welcome to IBIA’s July newsletter: Big squad of players needed for Association’s season ahead

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My July introduction to the newsletter draws on the analogy of a football team’s summertime preparation for the season ahead. The more I thought about this the more striking were the parallels, so here goes.

July and August are normally a time to take a breath, catch up, look back at what has happened and prepare for the start of the new season. By looking at our events schedule, it is certainly going to be busy with some big fixtures both home and away in September (SMM, London Forum and Cape Town Forum), October (SIBCON) and November (our International Convention in Gibraltar). We know they will challenge some big players, as you can see in our listing for all the fixtures.

Our home ground in Singapore was badly in need of refurbishment, and when we added up the cost to extend it, well it just wasn’t an efficient use of our supporter’s money. Fortunately, an opportunity arose along Thomson Road and so we have a new place that has doubled our capacity to meet increased attendances for training and staff. We have the added bonus of now being able to provide a cost-effective forum facility. All these facilities have been put to the test with a capacity crowd attending our training sessions in June and the Surveyors forum in July.

This year we also have some “major internationals” taking place at IMO, in particular MEPC 70 in October. We have taken part in the preliminaries, such as the availability study steering group and put out our position detailing the impacts of the sulphur cap “transition”. You will note that having consulted you, our supporters we have clear backing to use an attacking formation.

We have been busy in the transfer market. Steve has been signed up for Chelsea after putting in some sterling work to enable us to climb into a “new league”. Unni – she’s been with us 3 months already! – But our communications and IMO presence is premier league standard and has sharpened up our “striking force”. We are also unveiling our new signing, Tara Morjaria who starts with us in mid-August. Tara is a professional administrator, with retail management experience and marketing and data management skills. She will be the first point of contact for the membership and manage the office functions along with our growing database of members.

We do however, need a big squad of players and I would like to draw your attention to a number of areas in which you can play a part. First, your participation in the work groups; we have so much going on and we do need experts. Second, an opportunity to stand for the board and help determine IBIA’s direction (see further details here) and third we want to hear from you. Vocal support is always welcome and spurs us on about the issues that face us in the nitty gritty of working life.

Football is all about opinions – opinions about picking the right players and having the right strategies –  and the bunker industry is no different. Help us by telling us what you think.

Come on boys and girls!

 

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