2007 Irish Fishermen's Organisation Award announced – Fishupdate.com
2007 Irish Fishermen’s Organisation Award announced Published: 21 March, 2007
THE conferring ceremony for the FETAC Certificate in Commercial Fishing took place last Thursday at the National Fisheries College in Greencastle, Co. Donegal.
In addition to the presentation of certificates, BIMs Marine Services Manager, Richard McCormick, presented Brendan Woods from Dunleer, Co. Louth, with the 2007 IFO Award. The prestigious Award marks Brendan as the top-scoring member of this year’s Certificate class. The Irish Fishermens Organisation Award is the industrys means of acknowledging the tremendous efforts that BIMs students have put into achieving their FETAC qualification.
Speaking at the ceremony, Mr McCormick also paid tribute to Moville Community School Transition Year students who completed the FETAC accredited training in Safety at Sea module in BIM’s National Fisheries College Greencastle.
The Gartan Outdoor Education Centre and Moville Community School, under the aegis of County Donegal VEC, the Irish Coast Guard and BIM came together for the first time to provide a maritime skills and sea safety experience to Transition Year students.
This is the first time that such an initiative has occurred and the long-term objective is to develop a FETAC Sea Education Award for Transition Year students, said Mr McCormick.
The course sets to increase safety at sea awareness amongst students in coastal communities; it provides knowledge of the sea and of the work of the Coast Guard, while it also increases awareness of careers at sea in the Irish seafood industry. This pilot has been a great success and may be rolled out in other coastal areas that are dependent on fisheries.
I would like to wish the graduates every success in their careers. Those here today that undertook the FETAC Certificate in Commercial Fishing and the students from Inishowen can be justly proud of their success. However, training is a lifelong process and I would like to add that BIM and National Fisheries College staff will be only too pleased to advise and encourage those who wish to progress to higher qualifications to come forward for further training.
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