LETTER FROM THE SECRETARY TO ALL THE MEMBERS OF ISCO (2008-1)

Dear Member,

 

I hope you are continuing to find the ISCO Newsletter useful and informative. I’m grateful to all of you that have sent in contributions and will continue to publish them whenever I can.

 

You will have read in the Newsletter that ISCO now has Consultative Status at IMO and on 11th February Members of your Executive Committee met with IMO in London. It was an extremely positive meeting during which IMO welcomed the contribution that ISCO will make to MEPC, the OPRC-HNS Technical Group and the Integrated Technical Co-operation Programme. You can find summary reports in the Members’ Area of the ISCO website at ISCO>Meetings. ISCO will be participating in the forthcoming meetings of the IMO Marine Environment Protection Committee and the OPRC-HNS Technical Group. More on this later …

 

The decision taken at the 2008 AGM to mount a rescue operation for the International Spill Accreditation Association (ISAA) has now been implemented with the transfer of management responsibility formalised on 11th February. Prior to this, on January 20th, your Secretary met with the Ireland Accreditation Steering Group in Dublin and, following on this meeting, the Group confirmed its support of ISCO taking over responsibility for managing the International Spill (Ireland) Accreditation Scheme. With regret, the resignation of ISAA Director, John Dawes, has been accepted – As he is now a full time manager for Briggs Environmental Services Ltd., conflict of interest prohibited his continuing as a member of the ISAA board. However, I’m pleased to advise that Dr Douglas Cormack will continue as the Chairman of ISAA and has now been granted Honorary Membership of ISCO. Douglas is highly respected in the spill control community and has a wealth of experience. We all look forward to the valuable contribution he will undoubtedly make to ISCO.

 

ISCO is pleased to announce the recent appointment of three new Members of ISCO Council – Dr Merv Fingas (CANADA), Mr Kevin Miller (UK) and Mr Paul Pisani (MALTA). Please take a few minutes to look at the profiles of Dr Fingas, Kevin Miller and Paul Pisani on the website at ISCO>Members. You will see that all are eminently well qualified individuals and we look forward to working with them.

 

We’re also pleased to welcome three new Members – Individual Member, John Noble, who was, until recently, Deputy Chairman of the Salvage Association and is now running his own company, Noble Marine. Corporate Member, SL Ross Environmental Research – the company responsible for collating and publishing the World Catalog of Oil Spill Response Products. Associate Member, The Scottish Environmental Technology Network – an organisation led by the Contaminated Land Assessment and Remediation Research Centre at the University of Edinburgh.

 

If you haven’t already registered on the ISCO website at  http://www.spillcontrol.org 

 

Please do so now. Until you’ve done this your access to the Members’ Area can’t be switched on.

 

Please take a few minutes to review the ISCO website. I’m looking for ideas on improving the website and for contributions to help populate the Technical/ Reference and other pages. Inputs could, for example, include information about response techniques that would help ISCO Members to build their knowledge and response capacity.

 

I’ve noticed that quite a few of our Corporate Members have not yet taken advantage of the free display advertising facility in the website Supplies & Services section. If you need help to make up your advertisement, our IT support can do the needful for a very modest fee.

 

Finally, please be mindful that the continuation of ISCO’s work depends on revenue from Membership Fees. It really is vitally important for ISCO to recruit new corporate and individual members and you can help by encouraging people in your country to join.

 

With kind regards

John McMurtrie

Secretary

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