WISTA Annual General Meeting

Date 15^th March 2019

Held at HFW Friary Court, 65 Crutched Friars 
London, EC3N 2AE United 

Board Attendees; Sue Terpilowski, Rachel Lawton, Teresa Peacock

Apologies received from Bridget Hogan

Committee Attendees; Maria Udy, Winnie Sorensen

Open and Welcome

ST opened the meeting, welcoming all, she wished to thank a number of people:

Rachel Lawton for all of her hard work as Treasurer, and to her firm Mazars for their generous sponsorship of a number of events.

Bridget Hogan, who she called a ‘star’ for all of the help and mentoring she had personally given to ST especially in the early days of her appointment to President of WISTA UK.

Teresa Peacock, Membership Secretary and some of her team at Spinnaker namely Lauren Thipthorpe and Georgina King for their support.

Maria Udy and Winnie Sorensen who had taken over the events for WISTA UK and had done a great job.

New Appointments – Newly Created

ST thanked them for taking on these roles and offer our help and support.

Mairead Ni Cheonin has taken over the position of Webmaster International

Communications Team – new members: Helen Kelly, Penny Thomas and Nicola Good

Two new subgroups were recommended and approved:

Marketing Group

Regional Support Group – Possible synergy with Maritime UK and mirror their ‘Hubs’.  Scotland would be another suggested Regional Group.

Any recommendations please to ST for people to be part of any of the sub groups.

Membership Report

TP updated all on the membership numbers.  2017 we had 153, 2018 we had 171 which represents a 12% increase.  Renewals for 2019 are 130 paid, 101 outstanding.  These will be chased.

HFW and Ince Gordon Dads are the largest corporate members with 16 and 15 respectively.

ST urged continued encouragement for members, listing the partnership work with the Women in Maritime taskforce, Maritime UK, SPNL and ICS as an effective way to get the message to a wide audience.

Conference 2019 – London International Shipping Week

LISW – 9^th September 2019 will be our event.  The venue is City Hall.  The first section will be an industry topic, second section will be around women in maritime.  Possibly related to the taskforce results.

The Minister for Shipping should be in attendance, a request has also gone into Princess Ann.  The event will be free to attend.  ABP should be sponsoring the Cocktail Reception afterwards.

Charity of the Year

Nominations were;

Stella Maris

Seafarers UK

Careers Promotional Forum

The chosen charities were Seafarers UK and Careers Promotional Forum.

We are happy to run an event to raise a donation for Stella Maris.

Elections

We do not have a ‘formal’ procedure for elections.  For the next elections, we will adopt the International Protocols where possible.

Board positions – those standing must have been a full member of WISTA UK for one full year.

President position – those standing must have been a serving board member for one full year.

Nominations must be in 28 days before the AGM.

These points were voted on and agreed by a majority vote.

Treasurer – Rachel Lawton was happy to remain in post – agreed

Membership Secretary – Teresa Peacock was happy to remain in post – agreed

Secretary – Monica Kohli has agreed to join Bridget Hogan as Co Secretary.  Monica also offered to take on a role in gaining sponsorship.  Accepted with thanks.

Julie Lithgow offered to move into the Regional Group Support Role.  Accepted with thanks

President Role – Mairead Ni Cheonin and Sue Terpilowski said a few words to support their application for the role of President.  A ballot then took place.  Sue Terpilowski was re-elected for President WISTA UK.

Treasurers Report

Rachel updated all attendees on finance.  The accounts were presented and approved.

AOB

WISTA UK Ambassadors – TP has spoken to Bob Sanguinetti, CEO for the UK Chamber of Shipping,  with a view to him becoming a WISTA Ambassador.   TP will see if there are any official guidelines around their appointment or commitment.

A discussion followed around having female ambassadors, Dame Louise Elman, MP for Liverpool Riverside was suggested.

Elections – A heated and emotional discussion lead by Mairead Ni Cheonin followed regarding the low numbers of members attending the AGM, and if that meant a meaningful election had taken place.  She was clearly distressed, angry and unhappy about the process.

Is the tide finally turning on gender imbalance in the maritime industry?

At the most recent bunker training course run by Petrospot in Oxford, two thirds of the attendees were female.

In many other business situations this wouldn’t be anything unusual; however the balance of gender on the Petrospot course was quite remarkable for the shipping industry because at most 4 per cent of the maritime industry’s sea-based workforce is female, and in the Merchant Navy, the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) estimates that women make up only 2 per cent of the world’s maritime workforce.

The important question to ask though is, does this attendance reflect the gender change in our industry that we’ve been waiting for?

Find out here.

This appeared in www.hellenicshipnews.com

The Women’s International Shipping & Trading Association (WISTA) was started forty years ago with just six women from three different European countries. Today, it has almost 2,000 members in thirty-three countries with representatives from nearly every sector of the maritime industry. Accounting for just two percent of the world’s maritime workforce of over 1.3 million, women continue to forge their place within the male-dominated sector, encouraging a more diverse, innovative and sustainable future.

Read this article to get inspired by these leading ladies’ quotes about working in the maritime sector.

This appeared in www.knect365.com

The IMO aims to create a gender balance in the maritime and shipping industry. With their gender balance programme under the slogan: “Training-Visibility-Recognition“, IMO has taken a strategic approach towards enhancing the contribution of women as key maritime stakeholders.

Watch this short film showing how IMO’s women in Maritime programme is helping to support gender diversity in the maritime sector.

On 26 August, Lieutenant Commander Zimasa Mabela took command of the SAS Umhloti, a South African Navy Mine Counter Measure Vessel. In doing so, she became the first woman to take charge of a South African naval ship.

During 2015, the need to advance women’s role in maritime activities has become a subject of unprecedented awareness and interest. And for good reason. The International Transport Workers’ Federation estimates that only 2% of the world’s maritime workforce is made up of women.

It is time to change this statistic by enhancing opportunities for women to be educated and gain experience in maritime activities. Equally important is changing the culture in the maritime sector to reduce the prejudices women encounter on a daily basis. Fortunately, there is evidence that efforts to do so are yielding results, even though building experience among women in the sector is no easy task.

Shipping and seafaring, from the time people first put to sea, has become increasingly diverse in terms of race, class, and nationality. Sailors work for a mix of individual owners and companies that reflect this intricate and globalised industry that the world economy depends on. However, the diversity of the motley crew of global seafarers has yet to take on a visible mixture of men and women – as many seafaring occupations remaining the preserve of men.

The long interaction of (mostly) men and the sea has also created significant cultural barriers to the participation of women in seafaring. This is, however, no excuse for the continued exclusion of women, or for failing to support the many women who have pushed past out-dated gender norms and made great strides in improving the participation of women in maritime.

Continue reading about the efforts made to bring more women into the maritime industry.

This appeared in www.weforum.org

Read about Chairman and C.E.O. of Foremost Group – a leading shipping and trading enterprise – Angela Chao’s experience at Sea and her tips on how to start a career in the shipping industry.

[…] For me, international shipping was my first love, even though my path took me initially to the world of finance. My passion for the exciting international world of my parents’ shipping company propelled me to obtain my MBA from Harvard University so that I could join them in the company started by my parents decades before. I was lucky that I had first-hand experience in seeing not only the many, varied career paths available in the shipping industry but also the tremendous joy that my parents experienced from their work. The opportunity to have a positive impact on international trade and geopolitical relations was for me the most important way in which I wanted to spend my working days.

Continue reading.

This appeared in www.angelachaoblog.com

Studies have shown that women have excellent opportunities today to pursue careers in maritime law, shipping business and administrations than was the case 30 years ago!

More and more organisations are showing interest to address and provide solutions to the following questions through mentoring, coaching and/or training:

• Are you hoping to increase women seafarers motivation and engagement?
• Do you want to improve women seafarers performance?
• Are you interested in increasing the number of women in leadership roles and the number of women who should be in leadership roles based on demographics, ability and interest?

Read about how to encourage women to work in maritime here.

This article appeared in www.safety4sea.com

Global maritime charity Stella Maris (Apostleship of the Sea) is marking Day of the Seafarer by paying tribute to female seafarers and cruise ship crew members.

The charity is also highlighting the vital role its female trustees, port chaplains, head office staff and volunteers play.

This year’s International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) theme for Day of the Seafarer is ‘I Am on Board with gender equality’.

AoS Board Member Theresa Crossley said, “The maritime sector has generally been behind the curve on gender equality, so it’s great that the IMO had really picked up the baton with the ‘I Am on Board with gender equality’ campaign.

“But someone said to me recently: “You can’t be what you don’t see.” In other words, women need to take up roles and responsibilities that have been traditionally the preserve of men and be visible in those roles, if we are to inspire our girls and young women for the future.”

Continue reading here.

This article appeared in www.maritime-executive.com

Despite greater awareness of the gender imbalance, advancement of women in shipping, particularly at sea, is slow.

In 1918, Victoria Drummond became an apprentice at the Caledon Shipyard in Dundee, the start of a journey to becoming Britain’s first female marine engineer, earning honours for bravery at sea during the Second World War. A century later and Victoria’s personal battle to conquer the maritime industry has yet to translate into gender equality. While progress has been made, statistics still show a woeful 2 percent of seafarers worldwide are women, while just a third of global shore-based maritime positions are filled by women.

“There is more action today to raise equality than ever before and that has to be recognised,” says Despina Panayiotou Theodosiou, president of the Women’s International Shipping & Trading Association (WISTA International) and chief executive of Cyprus-based Tototheo Maritime. “But substantial, effective change needs time, collaboration and patience.”

Read more about which steps need to be taken to raise equality in the maritime industry here.

This article appeared in www.raconteur.net

On the International Day of the Seafarer, the campaign theme of which is ‘I Am On Board with gender equality’ driven by the 2019 World Maritime Day theme (Empowering Women in the Maritime Community), Human Rights at Sea publishes the updated story and case study of Electro Technical Officer, Amreen Bano: an Indian seafarer who is helping to lead the way to increased inclusion and acceptance of women at sea.

The case study outlines the underpinning of her Muslim faith, her immediate family support, her constant drive in the face of bias and adversity, including the challenges she has faced to achieve her qualifications and Certificate of Competence as the first and youngest female ETO in India, in a previously male-dominated industry.

To read more, click here.

This appeared in www.themaritimeexecutive.com