On April Officers of Alassia assembled at Avior premises to take part in a seminar on "human element" and "emergency preparedness". The seminar was facilitated by Mr. Ole Jorgen Eikanger of the Norwegan Hull Club.

During the seminar various on board situations and industry incidents were discussed. Some involved role play by participants. All to make Officers aware the role human behaviour can play in avoiding accidents and in handling emergency situations. Very few maritime accidents happen by the single mistake of one person.  It usually is a chain of mistakes by several persons, the system or demanding circumstances. If anywhere along this chain of events someone would have stand up and took preventive action the incident would not have happened. The seminar created awareness on this and challenged participants to be that person standing up.

The meeting was also attended by Ms Katerina Xenou of the Crewing Department and Mr Georgis Adamantidis of the Technical Department who updated Officers on the developments within Alassia and technical issues that needed attention.

The meeting was concluded with a dinner for Officers and family. 

On April 2nd Avior attended the graduation of the Selected Cadets Batch 2014 at JBLF in Bacolod. A total of seven cadets graduated in Bacolod and another twelve graduated the following day in Iloilo at the JBLF Maritime University.

The nineteen cadets will be joined by another thirty cadets from the Palompon Institute of Technology who are graduating in June. This graduation was delayed by two months as this school found itself in the path of supertyphoon Haiyan last November. The school and the town were badly damaged and classes were suspended for two months.

Cadets are expected to be ready to board vessels of the participating Principals from the beginning of June.

EU decides to give more time to Philippines to meet the requirements of the STCW convention.

In its meeting of April 23 the Committee on Safe Seas and the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (COSS) recognized the intensified efforts and progress made over the last two years in meeting the Requirements of the Convention. However COSS Members noted that still substantial gaps remain especially in the field of monitoring of educational  and training facilities, implementation of the Management Level Courses and the standard and availability of training equipment on Maritime schools.
As a way forward the Philippines were invited to seek technical assistance through the  IMO from the international maritime community and it was agreed that another EMSA visit will take place after the start of the academic year  2014-2015.

For full statement of COSS meeting and prsentation on action plan by MARINA Administrator Max Mejia please go toLinks & Downloads