Message from the President
The ‘ … ber’ months are here!! Joyful expression for both young and old alike.The air is once again filled with the unfathomable excitement going well into the last months of the year. Strong or weak, healthy or else, young or once-young, rich and not-so-rich, whatever is the status a person, everybody is being thankful to have reached this time of year and going into another year of our borrowed life.
We in MMSM are no different from others. We are very glad that we are all together, working together, spending time resolving difficult situations together or just enjoying simple conversations with each other, sometimes, of seemingly meaningless jovial or rather serious topics. Looking back at the last 3 quarters, one can feel a smile developing in one’s face what with all the things we have carefully and meticulously planned, successfully done and those that we are still going to do. A lot can be said and, as the saying goes, time flies so fast. There have been so many quotes about this and I like most how Harvey Mackay* expressed it, “Time is free, but it is priceless. You can’t own it, but you can use it. You can’t keep it but you can spend it. Once you’ve lost it, you can never get it back”.
Yes, that’s true. Time is of the very essence and we should live it to the fullest because we die only once. Live life and enjoy it to the fullest. We have been making use of our time and have tried, as much as possible, to add more meaningful tasks to fill to our room for improvement. We have looked into the process of management and operations on board our managed vessels. While it is true that MMSM is the manager of the vessels, the actual managers are the senior officers onboard led by the Master as the general manager. MMSM staff are, operationally, the support group to the vessel’s management. In that aspect, we have delegated the management of the vessels’ annual budget to the shipboard side. Monthly budget variance report is sent to each vessel for the Master and his senior officers to study, discuss and refer to in future planning of necessary stores and spare parts requisitions and supplies. Weekly status of ship’s processed requisitions have also been provided to respective vessels. This gives the management onboard the idea of the delivery status of requested items and the chance to remind MMSM side of urgently needed items from the status list. We are glad to announce that this process have been working smoothly among all parties. It can be noticed that there is no more stress brought about by the pressure of misunderstanding regarding budget and costs and also anxiously waiting for supplies. A situation that brings healthy and safe outcome to our shipboard and office partners.
Safe sailing to all and all the best in the coming yuletide season wishing one and all a Merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year wherever you will be by that time in the vast ocean and strange ports.
Vicente A. Pono
