Taking a fresh look at the sea

Sea Vision UK Forum Latest

Sea Vision UK held its fourth annual forum on Tuesday 27 November. This year the event was chaired by Doug Barrow of Maritime London and keynote speakers included the campaign’s Patron, HRH The Princess Royal, and the shipping minister Jim Fitzpatrick.

The forum provides Sea Vision partners with an opportunity to make a direct contribution to the campaign’s future plans and to network with representatives from across the maritime cluster. The event also saw the launch to the Sea Vision community of The Sea, a new magazine on all aspects of the sea and the maritime sector that will hit newsstands in March 2008.

HRH The Princess Royal showed particular interest in the Sea Vision Maritime Enterprise Game demonstration by three cadets from Fleetwood Nautical Campus. The game, developed by Sea Vision North West Careers Group, has been produced by Halton Council and provides an exciting new tool for teachers tasked to deliver the Enterprise Curriculum. It introduces the players to the business concepts and processes in shipping and distribution and has a value for the 11-16 year schoolchildren (for whom it was developed), for students in higher education and for adults.

Mark Brownrigg, Chairman of the National Core group Sea Vision UK, welcomed delegates to the fourth Sea Vision Forum and thanked all partners for their continuing support

He reflected on this year’s notable successes: from the steady growth in supporters - a 32% increase in the number of partner organisations; to the huge success of the Sea Vision Maritime Enterprise Game.

He recognised that there are some challenges that need to be cracked if the Sea Vision experiment, which has started so well, is to survive and to bear fruit properly. The main challenges he identified are partner involvement, regional and local engagement, and resources.

In particular, Mark Brownrigg stressed the point that: “All serious partners need to think how they can best contribute to our essential and common objectives in an active and practical way.”

BREAKOUT SESSIONS

Break-out sessions at the event considered the campaign’s events strategy, work to further develop the local and regional activity, educational work (including the structure of the resources database on the new Sea Vision website, the development of the next edition of the Maritime Careers magazine and the Maritime Enterprise Game), and the various responses from the partnership to the EU Green Paper (now the Blue Paper).

Sea Vision events strategy

David Squire of Trinity House chaired a session which looked at the events strategy for 2008 and examined the potential for a Sea Vision event organizers group to share specialist skills, buy equipment and services in bulk and cross promote Sea Vision-linked events.

The discussion covered issues of concern, challenges and possibilities for future activity

A number of helpful suggestions were made by partners. For example, the possibility of using the regional development agencies as avenues for funding and organisational focal points; that there should be a focus for each year’s event activity (in 2008 it was suggested that this be engineering), an exhibition stand to travel the UK; the greater use of movie trailers, YouTube and other modern technology to catch the eyes of young and general public and the need to promote the message to all core industries, such as the new offshore technologies.  Members of the session expressed a willingness to join an advisory group to help the ongoing refinement of the events strategy.

It was also suggested that we should set up a “know your neighbour service”, providing partners with contact details for other partners based near them – to help facilitate networking in regional clusters.

Finally, the group posed the question: to succeed, events involvement requires proper financing and staff resources – so, should there be a membership fee?

Regional Engagement

The regional engagement session was chaired by Jim Teasdale of Mersey Maritime.

A number of challenges were identified, in particular, the need to promote the use of common imagery, raising the general awareness of Sea Vision across the country and the wider encouragement of education programmes.

The following suggestions were agreed as ways to help provide a template for improvement in the regional Sea Vision organisation:

To help Sea Vision expand, grow and prosper regionally, the group suggested:

Striking a chord with the participants in the events group, the suggestion was made that Sea Vision should identify an annual theme for messages and promote this throughout the regions and use it as the core theme in publications.

Education

The education session was co-chaired by Ian Gallett of the Society of Underwater Technology and Glenys Jackson of the Merchant Navy Training Board.

The session examined the educational resources available to promote Sea Vision messages and their ability to communicate to as wide an audience as possible – particularly young people, teachers, careers advisers, youth groups and parents.

The group seized upon a variety of opportunities to invigorate the communication of Sea Vision messages. For example, the group suggested strongly promoting the Sea Vision website education resources database; seizing upon success of the Maritime Enterprise Game for much wider distribution; and examining the potential of a Maritime Zone at the Learning Grid Rockingham Festival in July 2008.

Great interest was shown in the Maritime Enterprise Game, by not only the group, but also HRH The Princess Royal later on in the day. All participants could see its enormous potential – not only for schools but also for companies and youth groups. A large number of partners expressed an interest in obtaining copies as soon as possible.

Participants felt the Maritime Careers magazine was a very useful resource, and identified its value with young people, career advisers/researchers and parents. They identified enhancements ranging from an expanded section about Sea Vision itself, the new website and the careers resources available on it; to case studies of voluntary sector and corporate responsibility involvement.

The group all felt that the Learning Grid Rockingham Festival should be supported by a Sea Vision Maritime Zone and felt a number of Midlands-based companies might be interested in being involved – e.g. Fairline boat builders and Perkins engines.

It was felt that a whole host of activities could be offered, including:

Blue Paper An Integrated Maritime Policy for the European Union

The group reviewed the European Commission's Green Paper consultation, which ran from June 2006 to the end of June 2007.

A concise summary of this process was provided by both Gavin Simmonds from the Chamber of Shipping and by Iain Shepherd of the Maritime Policy Task Force at the Commission.

Delegates were told of the significant input made by UK based organisations – the drive being the search for a more integrated approach. Uniting all sea-users was strongly endorsed by Sea Vision partners and the UK Government, and indeed by the vast majority of other European member states.

The results of the consultation were published in October as 'A Blue Paper An Integrated Maritime Policy for the European Union’. The Paper sets out an action plan to promote the competitiveness of the maritime sector, to produce more jobs and better quality careers for seafarers.

Some thirty actions are proposed, ranging from studies into internal maritime barriers to trade, maritime surveillance, marine research and general data collection. Importantly, it is seen as a pan-European priority to encourage a better understanding of the sea through the development of maritime clusters – and Sea Vision is acknowledged to be an innovative model.

Sea Vision partners welcomed the Blue Paper and thought the Commission’s proposals were proportional to the varied needs of the sector. Partners thought it essential, as the action plan is implemented, to continue to share the UK's unique maritime knowledge with the Commission.