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Apr 22

Weekly Bulletin

AGM

This week we held our annual AGM, and we would like to thank John Denholm for his leadership and guidance over the past two years. His strength of character and determination to help the industry has been second-to-none and it has been an honour to work with him.

We are also delighted to welcome Graham Westgarth as President and JB Rae-Smith as Vice-President. We are looking forward to working with both as we embark on a new era where we will strengthen our purpose and our offerings to those across the UK shipping and maritime sector.

The Chamber also launched its updated Journal during the AGM looking back at the last twelve months and what issues the industry may face in 2022 and beyond. You can read the new Journal here.

P & O FERRIES
Following an extremely difficult few weeks we have seen the first signs of positive progress in the ferry sector. The Secretary of State announced in Parliament on Wednesday nine broad measures to be introduced to address the issues raised in the P&O Ferries dispute. The Chamber and our members have been closely consulted and support the intent behind measures as we continue to analyse and respond on the detail. Read full press release here.
The DfT has also announced the launch of a Maritime Skills Portal intended to support individuals impacted by the P&O Ferries redundancies by putting them in contact with employers with relevant opportunities. The link to the MSP can be found here and we would urge participants to actively use the portal to raise awareness of current vacancies across the sector. Companies in a position to help may add their details to the site.

IMO
Next week the Chamber is attending the 9th session of the IMO Sub-Committee on Pollution Prevention and Response (PPR 9). The Sub-Committee is going to discuss a very heavy agenda including work to evaluate washwater discharges from scrubbers, follow up work emanating from the action plan to address marine plastic litter from ships (specifically looking at plastic pellets), progress the revision of MARPOL Annex IV and its associated guidelines to introduce provisions of sewage treatment plants and the review of the 2011 guidelines for the control and management of ships' biofouling. A brief on the outcome of this meeting will be circulated to members afterwards.

MEMBER UPDATE
Finally, some of you would have received your Membership Subscription Call this week, which includes a Member Update on the Chamber’s work over the last six months. We are aware this does not get to all members, so if you have not seen it, please do have a read through when you have a spare 10 minutes by clicking here. This also explains how staff of member companies can sign-up to our communications, Committees and Panels.