Ahoy

Kevin Hunt: Five Years At METL

Last year when we passed my four year anniversary I remember joking that it would only be twenty minutes until I hit five years and had to write another one of these - and that seems about right.

The past year has been busy for METL. The setup of the METL RTO has been ramping up, with the building being completed and the red tape currently being handled to commence delivery in the near future.

Separate to that our GTO operations have been continuing. The downturn in the industry has led METL to reduce the number of trainees we are putting through to the minimum required by our Host Employers, but we have been continuing nonetheless.

CSL, our longest-running Host Employer, has recently started out another group of trainees who will serve their seatime exclusively aboard CSL vessels. This is the second year that CSL have committed to hosting a group of trainees solely aboard their vessels, rather than having them rotate through swings with other Host Employers in addition to CSL. This exclusive hosting provides the TIRs with a deeper understanding of CSL vessel operations and company culture, in addition to building up a series of performance reviews that can be taken into consideration for future employment opportunities with CSL.

Kevin Hunt: METLs Operation Officer

On top of that there has been a recent update to the IR training package, which always lends itself to extra work when we bring on unemployed TIRs to complete their seatime. That extra work is worth it, though, since it means we’re able to assist a seafarer from within the industry who’s having a hard go of it finding somewhere to complete the required seatime to achieve their IR ticket.

We’re also slated to run through a GTO audit in a few months, which is always an interesting experience for us, since we’re the only dedicated maritime GTO in Australia. In many instances this means we find ourselves experiencing a ‘square peg in a round hole’ scenario with regards to the Australian training framework that we operate within. Having said that, we’ve set up a great system here, and expect to easily meet audit requirements, as we did during the previous audit a couple of years ago.

Since we’re talking about meeting requirements I’ll also take the opportunity to pat METL on its collective back, since we have recently been advised that METL has been confirmed once again as a White Ribbon Accredited Workplace. The process of reaccreditation was just as rigorous as the initial application, with a large spread of evidence being provided to show that METL as an organisation, and we as employees, lived and breathed the White Ribbon message of ending violence against women in Australia.

We’re already up to August at this point, which seems to have happened overnight, so I’ll see you in another twenty minutes for the next of these updates.

Posted in Ahoy at 27 July 17