IROVA goals/purpose/mission

[Lemmin]

I’m interested in what people think the purpose of IROVA should be. As I see it, theres a few main areas where the industry could do with a professional body:

Pay and conditions
This one is pretty obvious, and close to everyone’s hearts. Personally I hope to see pay and conditions improve because of an improvement in professionalism, and through a gentle influence… however a suitably representative industry body would probably be able to bring a certain amount of pressure to bear if necessary.

Educating the public, industry and government
This could be thought of as marketing – making sure people know the capabilities and limitations of ROVs (and AUVs?), and the benefits from using them. Maintaining a contact point for press (with photos, info-sheets, people willing to provide quotes etc) would be a good idea. Also, maintaining a list of "Friendly" ROV operating companies (or maybe even some kind of approved list?) on the website so anyone needing ROV services can find them.

Safety
Promoting the safe operation of ROVs, publishing best practice information, bringing to light any safety issues, and providing IROVA members with a place to go for information on regulations, responsibilities and advice.

Training standards
Maintaining professionalism within the ROV industry by ensuring training and experience is recognised. This might at first be simply through a series of membership grades with certain criteria? Some kind of training manual or guidance for schools might be nice as well though – I know a lot of people don’t believe the schools provide a useful service to the industry, but they aren’t going to go away, and working with them is likely to be a better way of making sure trainees are equipments with the skills, knowledge and expectations that they need to survive in the industry.

Liaison with IMCA and other trade bodies
There’s been a bit of discussion about how the IROVA will replace IMCA – I think that is nonsense. IMCA is a very wide industry body covering all sorts of marine work, and its members are the contractors (which for the most part means companies rather than people). IROVA represents the people within the ROV industry, so I don’t see any potential conflict. IROVA should set up lines of communication with IMCA and with any other trade bodies that have overlap.

Liaison with government agencies
Not quite sure about this one, I haven’t done much research, but I’m sure there’s different bodies worldwide that cover engineering, marine work etc. In the UK that might be the Engineering Council, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, and I don’t know what else.

Member benefits / support
Once again not quite sure, but stuff like life insurance, health insurance and professional indemnity insurance could probably be negotiated at a discount for IROVA members (or maybe even included in membership subs?) Acting as an advocate for any member having trouble with a recalcitrant agency or employer might also be on the cards. Legal advice would also be nice to have available.

Employment services
Really not sure about this, but it ought to be possible to maintain a list of members currently seeking employment, and at the same time a list of upcoming jobs. ROVWorld currently does a good job of this via the forums though, and IROVA doesn’t want to tread on the toes of any agencies, so maybe this one is a non-starter.

—
Those are my thoughts anyway. I know everyone will have their own take on the above, so please comment on what you think, tell me which ideas are rubbish or unnecessary, and point out what I’ve missed.

IROVA will (probably) need some of the above goals set in writing as and when it incorporates, since I expect some kind of mission statement will need to be part of the articles of formation or whatever the legal term is.

LEM

[thomas]

Lemmin,

Thank you for your considered and well thought out post.

I look forward to a full forum discussion on the above.

[Scott Beveridge]

IROVA and all others involved / interested,

Lemmin’s post above could be separated into each "topic" so to speak and have a different thread for each… Perhaps a poll for each to enable a clear-cut decision being made as well.

James, I’ve never experimented with the polls too much but how many characters per line could one have for each / every choice in a poll? The reason I’m asking is, without being too long-winded one could be concise enough in a poll for each choice.

[thomas]

I would just like to highlight this topic for discussion.

This is your opportunity to bring forth all those bad feelings in our industry and offer a solution.

Nearly eighty percent of people polled want something done to help our industry so please take this opportunity and tell us what you really want .

I can promise you that this association will , and is ,happening,numbers are growing and progress is being made.Get involved even if its only to voice your opinions on here,all are welcome good or bad ,each will be addressed and decided upon.

This particular thread could lead to the main body of our future.

To all who have contributed thankyou, and to those who are not yet sure ,now is the time to make your decision.Stay as you are ,or join in the advancement of our industry.

[Scott Beveridge]

And remember folks…. IT’S FREEEEEEEEE!!!!!!! Speak up and be heard!

[Author]

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