Our much-loved and admired magazine turns 100 with this milestone edition
Bromley Abbott delves into the archives for a trip down memory lane.
Welcome, dear reader, to this the 100th edition of “The Ship Supplier” – our much-loved and admired magazine that reflects so much of our Association’s history.
If you will, cast your mind back to the mid-1990s. Surely it was an age of innocence – one could say the calm before the digital storm.
Unbelievably there were no “smart” phones. ISSA Members still did much of their business using Telex and the latest invention: the fax machine.
Barely 5% of members had an e-mail address and the general consensus way back then was that the Internet would never catch on.
What remained constant was the need to communicate if you were to stand any chance of prospering as a ship supplier.
ISSA leaders grasped the importance of that from the very beginning in 1955. Thus was born the ISSA Register of Members.
That was a great step forward – along with the annual Convention – if all you needed was to develop global contacts to assist your customers to store their ships in far flung ports around the world.
It took until 1995 – a full 40 years after its formation – for ISSA to look beyond strictly business affairs and recognize the need to inform and educate the wider world on the importance of ship supply.
The first tentative steps had been taken 10 years before – 1985 – when that year’s Convention theme was “Storing Ships is Teamwork”. This was a self-evident truth espoused in simpler times but what it did was lead to the fore-runner of this magazine but titled “Storing Ships News”.
Looking back now one could forgive the somewhat grey tone of the publication. Size alone – it was A5 which was basically half the size of today’s successor – could have spelt a short life-span.
However its purpose was to alert ship owners and ship managers to the industry sector that they depended on: ship supply and it was enough to whet the appetite for supplier and customer alike. They wanted more!
In those far off days – didn’t the sun always shine then; were not people generally happier? – the magazine was an “in house” production of the ISSA Secretariat which by then had taken over from Germany and located itself in London.
There remained a restlessness though that not only wanted tales of derring-do emanating from the dock side to be published but also readers to be informed, educated and entertained.
These worthy ambitions were constrained, though, by the size and format of “Storing Ships News”. There was a definite need to bring in the professionals.
Enter the Informa Group.
"Into every life a little rain must fall”. For ISSA this translated into a thunderstorm as on the one hand readers and ISSA management were united."
This mighty publisher of Lloyd’s List (the World’s oldest daily newspaper) conveniently had a contract publishing division that welcomed ISSA and offered a raft of ideas and design flair.
Head of the Division and former News Editor of Lloyd’s List was none other than our own ISSA Secretary Sean Moloney who seized the opportunity with relish and set about translating the vision of the magazine going forward into reality.
Enter “The Ship Supplier”!
From – if you will – “parish pump” to global leader in one fell swoop, Sean and his team displayed their vision of what could be – and in fact turned out to be - a game changer.
Although something of a niche sector of the maritime industry it soon became apparent that the mouse was planning to roar like a lion!
Suddenly a whole team of writers, sub-editors, designers, advertising sales executives and distribution experts were busy turning this dream into reality.
As requested by ISSA Management the scope of the magazine’s coverage widened to include articles that informed readers of international legislation affecting ship supply and reflected the changing world that was setting a dizzying pace by the early 2000s when the Internet suddenly was “the next big thing”.
Arguably, print media was facing an existential crisis and the traditional trade magazine needed to examine how to cope.
Straw polls conducted unscientifically but nevertheless diligently, found that the by then the 7,000 global readership not only appreciated the magazine and enjoyed the lively and informative content but were absolutely supportive of its continuance.
Alas disruption lay ahead.
Informa contacted ISSA to say that, sadly, they were no longer able to produce and publish the magazine for the Association as it was not meeting its sales and revenue targets sufficiently to remain viable.
As the saying goes: “into every life a little rain must fall”. For ISSA this translated into a thunderstorm as on the one hand readers and ISSA management were united in the need to retain the magazine and on the other the only route to that was to take it back in house.
Then the cosmic forces aligned and our old friend Sean popped up to say he had left Informa and set up his own Public Relations and Contract Publishing operation and would ISSA be interested in joining the new firm – Elaborate Communications Ltd – and contracting it to publish “The Ship Supplier” going forward.
In no time a deal was done, and the magazine was saved from extinction and started its new course under the familiar expertise of Sean and his team.
Unbelievably that was well over 20 years ago and the magazine prospered and developed to the present lively and popular style that it enjoys today.
Along the way there have been memorable stories and reportage.
To assist ISSA in its efforts to deal with the vexed subject of abandonment of seafarers, the magazine reported on the establishment of the IMO’s Abandonment Database half funded by ISSA. Why? Because a by product of this was enabling ship suppliers to be ranking creditors when a ship was abandoned. Ship suppliers were often the only people who could keep seafarers fed and supplied. Now they would be paid for this out of the sale proceeds of the abandoned vessel.
Another major event which followed the 9/11 attack was the swift introduction of the International Ship and Port Facility Security Code via the International Maritime Organisation (IMO).
ISSA worked hand in glove with the IMO to develop its own Guidelines as the ISPS Code featured extensive obligations upon ship suppliers which needed detailed explanation.
This combined education and information role continues to the present day – interspersed with an element of entertainment too!
The readership – both digital and printed – has expanded to around 10,500 and reaches all 96 ISSA countries as well as members’ customers – the world’s ship owners and managers.
In addition Governments, other trade associations and academics avidly look to what can truly said to be the mouth piece of the global ship supply industry.
Here’s to the next 100 editions!
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