Odessa Forum

June 2019

The Odessa Forum, held in Londonskaya Hotel on 12th & 13th June, was a thought-provoking and interesting event where the attendees shared opinions and ideas, and made suggestions for further improvement. On the first night of the Forum, a dinner party was attended by the Seafarers accompanied by their wives and children. This was a very good opportunity to share ideas and make the bonds between the Seafarers and Head Office stronger and more meaningful. On the whole, it was a thoroughly enjoyable event. The Forum agenda included a variety of interesting topics such as the bunkering process and the treatment of bunkers, voyage management, energy management and PSC high-risk items. Particular emphasis was given to safety/behavioural topics like chronic unease and weak signals, root cause analysis, the human factor and human error in navigational incidents. A presentation was also made regarding significant changes to the Company’s Safety Management System. As part of the Company’s commitment to its Seafarers’ well-being, a presentation on Preventive Medicine was made by an external attending speaker, Dr. Haris Karageorgiou, who as a gastroenterologist was able to present meaningfully very interesting statistics regarding Ukrainian Seamen’s health and useful information on maintaining a healthy way of life. What is more, an introduction to seafarers’ mental well-being was also made during a presentation on the first day. During this presentation, the officers were introduced to the notions of mental well-being and mindfulness and were presented with techniques to anticipate stress such as mindful breathing. The participants warmly welcomed these mental well-being techniques. Last but not least, Mr. Gabriel Dovles of TQC gave presentations about UMS Operations, Cyber Security, Human Behaviour and Goal Zero.