To honour and recognise the achievements of Vistarians, Mr. David Lee, Executive Director of Wavelink Education Group, was invited as the Guest of Honour for North Vista Secondary School 52 th Annual Speech and Prize-Giving day.

In his address, Mr. David Lee affirmed, “For many of you, the award is an evidence of diligence, discipline and determination in your life.” He also shared 4 principles for success in life which he termed as the acronym B.L.O.G. In short, they are B – Be at your BEST, L – Keep LEARNING, O – Be OPTIMISTIC, G – Earn a GOOD name. He encouraged the students to use this B.L.O.G. to create their life story.

Together with North Vista ’s motto – “Viva La Vista” which literally means “having a long lasting vision”, Mr. David Lee urged individuals to rise above the masses and achieve not just one but continuous success in life.

SMOU and Wavelink organised the Lunar New Year Luncheon cum Hong Bao Presentation with an additional celebration as they unveiled the setting up of the Wavelink Maritime International Pte Ltd (WMI) – a new subsidiary of the Wavelink Education Group. WMI’s mission is to enable members of the maritime industries to realize their potential through the delivery of high quality and cost effective courses and programmes.

Speaking at the presentation, held on 14 February 2008 at the Raffles City Convention Centre, Guest-of-Honour, Minister of State for Education and Manpower, Mr Gan Kim Yong said: “The newly established WMI was set up to add value to the maritime industry through the education and training of seafaring officers. I encourage seafarers to take advantage of WMI’s training programs.”

Having recently been certified ISO 9001:2000, WMI is prepared to face the demands of the maritime industry while at the same time ready to add value to the industry through its team of professionals and experienced individuals from the industry.

The celebration this year consisted more than 700 guests including officials from NTUC, unionists, co-operatives, shipping companies, members and residents from its adopted charity, the Henderson Senior Citizens’ Home.

In the quest to develop quality cadets, Wavelink Academy first carefully selects students from reputable maritime institutions. Thereafter it provides them with a one-month value added customized training – CadetsPlus™, before placing them onboard. The result? Smoother integration and longer stay in sea.

The CadetsPlus™ initiative is supported by the Singapore Maritime Training Fund (SMTF) and shipping companies. CA ships with the Singapore Maritime Officers’ Union enjoy benefits from the SMTF. Strategic partners include Singapore Maritime Academy (SMA) as well as regional institutions and maritime organizations.

During the one month training, modules including Maritime English, shipboard Organisational Behaviour & Management, and Maritime Occupational Safety, Health & Environmental Protection, etc were taught. They also followed the daily exercise and weekly drill training routine under strict supervision.

During the inaugural CadetsPlus Graduation Ceremony cum SMOU Qingdao Night on 14th Sep 2007 at Qingdao Shangri-la hotel, there were many touching moments as students expressed their gratitude to the teachers. Gracing the event was Guest-of- Ho nour Mr. Matthias Yao (Mayor of Singapore South East District), Ms. Wang He (General Secretary of COSE) and Mr. Wang Shaoyun (Vice President of Qingdao Port Corporation), together with representatives from the shipping companies.

As one of the shipping companies have echoed, “On behalf of all our cadets, we thank you and Wavelink for the wonderful arrangement. Believe this will be of great benefit to our cadets and help them to face the challenge ahead. I am also very impressed with your CadetsPlus training program this time in QHVTC and we will extend our utmost cooperation with Wavelink on the future crew training in China .” – Yang Jincao ( Beijing PACC)

Since its inaugural inception in September 2001, the biennial Maritime Manpower Singapore Conference (MMS) has been established as a feature of the local maritime calendar. The Maritime Manpower Singapore (MMS) 2007 was jointly organised by the Seafarers Training & Education Advisory Committee (STEAC) and managed by Wavelink. Held on 7 September at Raffles City Convention Centre, this year’s conference, themed “Crewing Crisis – A Call for Action”, puts into perspective the widespread shortage of seafaring officers in the maritime industry with an added emphasis on the necessity to focus on the course of action to address this phenomenon.

The power-packed panel of speakers included senior management representatives from the shipping companies in the region, senior academics from maritime training institutions, senior figures from the maritime authorities and even female seafarers. The conference was attended by more than 300 delegates from the maritime industry.

For the first time, 120 senior citizens from the NTUC Eldercare Centres were invited for the Lunar New Year Hong Bao lunch with unionists and the maritime community as guests. Gracing the occasion was Ms Grace Fu, Minister of State for National Development and adviser to the Singapore Maritime Officers’ Union (SMOU). The luncheon took place on 28 February 2007 at the Raffles City Convention Centre.

The senior citizens were all smiles as NTUC and SMOU officials distributed red packets to more than 350 elderly from NTUC Eldercare and SMOU senior citizen members. In his address, SMOU President, Captain Robin Foo, said that SMOU has always believed in caring and sharing and contributing positively towards its membership and the community especially with the elderly and senior citizen members who are Silver Collar in the union’s membership.

Since 1987, SMOU has contributed more than S$2.1 million through various charity projects over the years and the Union will continue to do more.

The Singapore Maritime Officers’ Union ( SMOU ) celebrated its 55th milestone amidst the company of more than 1,200 local and international unionists, shipping companies and government officials at a grand dinner at the Raffles City Convention Centre. The dinner celebrations were officiated by Mr Lim Swee Say, Minister, Prime Minister’s Office and Deputy Secretary-General of the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC).

During the celebrations, SMOU shared its future plans and its new vision for the future. Ms Mary Liew, SMOU Executive Secretary said “ SMOU is working towards 20,000 members by 2011 and looking into developing regional training in the region to ensure that quality SMOU members work on board Singapore ships.

Describing the union’s journey over the last 55 years, she said, “ SMOU has had a long journey but I believe that this is just the beginning of a longer journey ahead.

Singapore Maritime Officers’ Union is spearheading a tripartite effort to meet an urgent need for more qualified officers to work on board Singapore flag ships and to attract more young Singaporeans to choose seafaring as a career. The Singapore Maritime Training Fund saw the Union contributing S$1.4 million with another S$900,000 raised through SMOU fund raising events and from CBA’s companies’ contributions. The current SMTF stands at S$2.3 million. Attending the launch on 7 July 2006 were also more than 200 leaders of the maritime sector.

“We want to promote seafaring as a rewarding career, provide Singapore flag ships with quality seafarers, help shipping companies become more competitive and play a part in bring Singapore closer to its vision of a leading International Maritime Centre (IMC),” said Thomas Tay, SMOU General Secretary.

The effort was applauded by Mrs Lim Hwee Hua, Minister of State for Finance and Transport. The Guest-of-Honour at the launch said that the SMTF signaled the unity of SMOU, the industry and stakeholders in investing for the future. “It is also an important demonstration of our joint commitment to enhancing the manpower that is crucial to Singapore ’s development as an International Maritime Centre.”

The Chairman of the SMTF Advisory Council, Mr Teh Kong Leong, described the SMTF as a ‘trail blazer’. “I take my hat off to Thomas Tay. This is a culmination of a very long journey which he has worked very hard on for many years.” He added that the maritime world is watching to size up the success of the Fund.

In an interview with Seavoices, Mr S.S. Teo of Singapore Shipping Association gave his nod of approval. “The SMTF is a meaningful tripartite effort to build Singapore up as an IMC. It is a good thing to fund not just local but foreign students as well.”

The first group of six recipients of the SMTF training grant received a total of more than $40,000. The first three beneficiaries are seafaring SMOU members who received S$11,000 each for their degree programme, Bachelor in Maritime Operations (BMO), from renowned maritime college, Netherlands Maritime Institute Willem Barentz (MIWV) in collaboration with Singapore Maritime Academy (SMA). Among the 6 recipients of the SMTF, three of them are SMOU members from Qingdao , China , who received training grants of up to $2,500 per annum, while pursuing their training at SMA. Du Lai Xing, Zhao Ying and Xu Jinliang were all smiles. Grateful for the grant, the boys promised that they would do SMOU proud with their hard work. “No words can express how thankful we are to SMOU and to all who contributed to SMTF,” they said.