Young Shipping Professionals holds membership roadshow

The Young Shipping Professionals (YSP) of CASA, a forum enabling the youth of the maritime industry to interact and gain exposure in preparing them as pipeline for the industry leadership, as part of the objectives: ‘Commitment to the youth of the industry’, launched its membership roadshow in September 2016 to reach out to all member agencies individually to discuss and obtain feedback from their registered members. 

The project was a great success with more than 90 percent active participation not only from the members but also from the management of the respective companies.
The YSP focused its attention on five critical factors, namely: 
1. Knowledge sharing and industry-specific education
2. Personal relations and communications with industry stakeholders
3. Corporate social responsibility
4. Spearhead along with CASA on contemporary industry-related issues
5. Increase the membership and encourage active interaction within the membership and industry
“Whilst we believe together we could achieve greater heights, at the end of the roadshow, we’ve managed to team up with our membership to address two themes – CSR and personal relations and communications – through two out of the four subcommittees established,” said YSP Secretary Ranga Sooriyaarachchi. 

The YSP established the following subcommittees where the members volunteered to involve in the current projects and provide feedback on the future projects:
1. CSR committee – to be responsible citizens
2. Media committee – to spearhead personal relations and communications
3. Sports – largely to drive interaction within membership
4. Sponsorships – as a fundraiser to be used as a pipeline for CSR
Today, the YSP comprises of 183 promising young talent covering 35 agents. The YSP has grown in strength since its inception and has given leadership in numerous projects. The YSP has taken two giant steps this year – collaboration with other industry-related bodies/forums (WISTA/WILAT) being the first, followed by the membership roadshow being one-of-its-kind, which gave good insight and great feedback for it to strengthen the YSP even more in the future.

 
“We have set up our objectives clear and have envisaged it to our members. It is time we navigate towards our objectives confidently,” said Chairman Navin Perera in his closing remarks. 
He also thanked the entire membership, management of all companies and the YSP steering committee and CASA Exco for the support extended in making the roadshow a success. 
The project was chaired by YSP Treasurer Hasitha Dissanayake and assisted by Sooriyaarachchi.