Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
Jack here is a dull boy today Having a day off work and spending too much time online. It's amazing though just what you come across by accident sometimes.
If anyone's watching the TV series 'Marcella', you may be interested that some of the scenes were shot in Harland & Wolff shipyard. It's the last place i thought INFA would maybe be getting an income from, but then again, every penny counts.
https://www.belfastlive.co.uk/whats-on/be/marcella-itv-belfast-locations-friel-19697297?fbclid=IwAR02vxTpHpXaSIwUzaI0FU2oN3Mh8cfHk4GaevyqDKp9gXbZt8-AdWUIw8M
https://www.larchfieldestate.co.uk/blog/itv-netflix-series-marcella-season-3-at-larchfield-estate
I see according to https://booking.belfast-harbour.co.uk/ that Stena Edda is due into dry dock in the next hour and scheduled to leave again on Saturday.
It'll good to see some photos of this newly built ship in dock. At 215m x 28m, she's a hefty big gurl of a ferry. Hopefully we'll see the pics soon on the website, Twitter, LinkedIn, FB, etc.
That's a fair point Tango. Ban also has a point re directors holdings and purchasing of more shares. JW has quite a bit of skin in the game with his holdings but it would give me a bit more confidence to see other directors buying a few top ups or even entering the game too.
Its maybe unfair of me to say this as we don't know folks personal circumstances, financial circumstances, outgoings, etc. I'm just thinking out loud here again.
We could definitely get a new CEO and CFO for a hell of a lot less than what we're paying these guys.
Myself and my son would happily take these jobs at 70k and 30k p/a.
My mate next door lost his job at Christmas and said 25k a year is what he needs to live on. He's up for doing any job he says.
My mum is looking a wee part time job a few mornings a week too and is good with a calculator and doing sums. She has CFO written all over her and minimum wage would get her I think.
None of us above have any shipping, shipyard or project management experience or have an extensive list of contacts. We're quick learners though if we get offered the job.
. . . . .
Ok, I'm obviously jesting, but folks come on. We need a calibre of individual running the show that is capable of delivering what we believe might be something really massive with Infrastrata. I believe we have them in our CEO and CFO. If we truly believe our guys are the guys and might be a bit special, then we need to pay them an attractive enough income to keep them from poached elsewhere.
Personally with our current figures I wouldn't want to see any salary increases however I'd love to see us in such a position of profitability that they guys were even getting double what they are now.
There's a great article on Infrastrata in Cruise Industry News today.
They seem to be going for the big boys in the cruise ship world, with an office in the 'cruise ship capital' of Miami. If we can get some of those massive Royal Caribbean ships in, those big articles outstretch the Viking sisters by 100+ metres at over 300m.
https://www.cruiseindustrynews.com/cruise-news/24167-harland-wolff-new-cruise-refurb-player.html
For me this is very significant investor and this RNS alone has been my motivation to top up further today.
Octopus is a company that I'm personally very familiar with and have previously attended seminars of theirs in relation to their Venture Capital Trusts (VCTs) and Enterprise Investment Schemes (EIS's). These seminars gave me a great insight into how they go about due diligence in selecting companies for investment including what they want to see in a company prior to investment. I'm honestly very excited about these guys now onboard, and excited WHY they might have came onboard.
DYOR folks but for me, Octopus will definitely have done theirs before investing and their research will have been much more comprehensive than that most of us Joe Publics will have been able to do.
The Facebook page 'No Gas Caverns' (with the cover page saying 'Stop Infrastrata') is a page that is campaigning to stop the Islandmagee project by Infrastrata. It's very actively encouraging people to send their letter of objection to DAERA prior to the 13th January deadline. Their post is encouraging people to, using their words and text, 'send a letter from EACH MEMBER of your family' and they're providing templates for this purpose.
Being a supporter of this Infrastrata project myself inc the marine license application, I contemplated whether to highlight the presence of this FB page as this could potentially promote it and their cause further.
I decided though to highlight the 'No Gas Caverns' page as I totally respect all individuals rights to object to this application and I also think it helps us understand folks concerns with it and particularly those concerns of local residents. These are very relevant concerns that need to be heard and respected.
There are passionate feelings against this project, however I personally feel that Infrastrata have completed the necessary research and provided the data required to allay environmental fears. Indeed I strongly feel they have went over and above the necessary research and feel INFA should be credited for doing this.
As many of us as possible need to inform DAERA of our feelings (positive or negative) as this is the purpose of a public consultation. The protestors will certainly be making their feelings clear to DAERA.
I'm hoping DAERA will receive some letters or emails over the next day or 2 on the thoughts from some of us folks here on the INFA chat page.
Way ta go CME. Hopefully that'll create a few positive letters too. The more supportive emails and letters that DAERA get the better.
Big welcome to you Christianmideast with your first post to the INFA pages.
I could have cut and paste my email here but if others simply copied mine and sent it to DAERA that wouldn't carry as much weight as individually worded ones. I think it makes more sense for us to individually demonstrate some passion and effort to DAERA on how we feel about this project. My opinion is that the same letter being sent isn't much better than a single page of a petition with a few signatures on it.
I also CC'ed a copy of my email to Edwin Poots. Mr Poots is the minister who will receive DAERA's recommendation on the Marine license application and who will be responsible in making the final decision.
The DAERA Marine License consultation closes on 13th January 2021. They are inviting opinions from the general public on this, their wording being :-
- - - - -
' The competent authority (The Department) considers it appropriate to obtain the opinion of the general public and this project is being advertised under Regulation 43(4) of The Conservation (Natural Habitats, etc.) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1995 ' .
I would imagine the individuals / parties who have previously registered their letters of objection to this project will be doing the same again with this renewed consultation. I've indeed seen social media posts where this is being actively encouraged.
This DAERA consultation however is for the purpose of ALL members of the public to express their thoughts and opinions, NOT JUST for those objecting to the project. My point is that anyone who is in support of this Islandmagee project from Infrastrata now has an opportunity to register with DAERA their thoughts on why this marine license is required and the benefits it can provide, ie to the local community, economic benefits, security of future energy supplies, etc.
Personally, I'm going to compose an email over the weekend and forward to DAERA in support of this project and detailing my reasons of support. This email will be from me as an individual and as someone who lives and works in N Ireland and the UK, and someone who wants the benefits for himself and his family that this project can provide in the coming years.
I'm not saying my letter will make any difference at all, but it'll only cost me 15 minutes of time this weekend and it'll maybe go towards balancing out the numbers of objection Vs support responses that DAERA will be receiving.
I've popped the link below if anyone else may be interested in offering up their opinions to DAERA in this consultation.
https://www.daera-ni.gov.uk/consultations/islandmagee-gas-storage-project-December-2020-consultation-AIL%20%26%20Consent%20to%20Discharge
Cheers Speedy. Looks like I was getting excited for nothing. Sorry folks . I should have done a bit more research before posting.
I have absolutely no idea whatsoever Stokey. I'd never even heard of concrete jackets before i came across the McAvoy's post.
Reading the Facebook comments on their post though, a guy has asked what they are and another has said they're used for the bases of wind turbines to be set on when they come off the boats.
Who knows, lol ? Hopefully someone on the board here with more knowledge than us pair might be able to shed some light on what these are. The bottom line is that 3 to 4 weeks ago H & W put them in with something in mind, and my wee mind here is curious.
I've just came across this post on Facebook from McAvoys (an engineering contractor in N Ireland). The post is about 3 weeks old but tells us they're installing 16 concrete jackets.
Could the big wurleys be coming soon I wonder ?
https://m.facebook.com/McAvoyConstruct/photos/a.456434401221216/1521597101371602/?type=3&source=48&__tn__=EH-R
Pacman. Can i ask what presentation you're referring to ? I've previously read that Patricia is going out of service but haven't seen anywhere about a potential replacement.
As for Trinity House, they have a history going back around 90 years with Harland and Wolff. A & J Inglis, the Glasgow shipbuilders (owned by Harland & Wolff from 1919) built 3 vessels for Trinity House in the 1930/40's (link below).
http://www.theyard.info/ships/list_ships.asp?name=&built=&vessel_type=&launch_date=&Owner=trinity&fate=
I've also popped a link on for a site on H & W http://www.theyard.info/ . I've put the link on previously for this site (but have done again now for any newbies here). It's a great source of historic information for anyone interested in the history of H & W. It includes an inventory of every ship built there as well as other builds in the shipyard.
At one time H & W was building all sorts of things including planes, trains and not quite automobiles, but tanks. The site is an interesting read, and it's even worth going to for a look at the phoatties of the olden days in The Yard.
It'll be interesting to see if there's any director, PDMR or PCA take up of the rights issue / excess shares.
It'll be a good sign going forward if there is. Hopefully there'll be a few RNS' to this effect in the coming days.
The link below gives a bit more info on weighted / unweighted pipeline definitions and some of the pros and cons of utilising this data in company forecasts.
https://www.propellercrm.com/blog/weighted-sales-pipeline
Folks, it was Bill Gates himself who done the Belfast monolith, cause I seen him so I did ! That Gates boyo doesn't know what mischief to be at these days.
It's now on the Belfast harbour bookings page that Stena Hibernia is in dry dock (BDD) on 2nd January.
I checked the harbour traffic page too Stokey and i agree it doesn't show it coming into dry dock so I've nothing concrete that I can confirm to you it's coming in. I've a few contacts I've got to know though in various shipping pages and my info has came from the same source that told me Celtic Explorer was coming to H & W before it hit the harbour traffic page. He won't give me any more info though other than it's coming in and will probably be here for a week. Sorry to be so sketchy but watch for it coming onto the harbour traffic page shortly.
Stena Hibernia is due into dry dock on 2nd January for 1 week. Good to see some work in to start 2021.