Richard Dixon has sent in the following notice of proceedings.

The Nautical Institute, headquartered in London, is delighted to announce that it has chosen Houston, Texas, as the venue for the fifth of its international series of Command Seminars, after Oslo, Plymouth, Singapore and Mumbai during 2005.
In the wake of 9/11 there has been a continued emphasis on Maritime Security with strong legislations like MTSA 2002 and then MTSA 2004. This year we saw the focus move to «Maritime Domain Awareness» as called for under the HSPD13 (Homeland Security Presidential Directive 13) and Long Range Tracking of Merchant vessels.
In this ever changing operational environment, and with charter rates testing new peaks, the mariner and the international maritime community have faced several delays to their operations due to lack of communication (and trust) between the maritime partners.
The Nautical Institute US Gulf Branch realized this shortfall in maritime operations and seized the opportunity of the NI Command Seminar to focus on «Bridging the Maritime Gap».
The focus of the two day seminar in Houston, planned for the 11th & 12th of April 2006, is to address areas ranging from commercial operations, to Criminalization of the Mariner, to opportunities for career development for existing and new maritime personnel. Experts from various fields including USCG, DOJ, DHS, MARAD, leading classification societies, eminent maritime Attorneys and other domain experts have been invited to present papers and discuss burning issues during the seminar.
The 33-year-old Nautical Institute is a charitable organization funded by an international 7000 strong member subscription, and represents the international Mariners’ voice at IMO. The aim of the Institute has been to educate the Mariner on various current issues for safety and professional development. An outstanding example of this is the NI Dynamic Positioning certification, which is an accepted standard certification for the offshore industry.
The Nautical Institute, U.S. Gulf Brach welcomes interested organizations and personnel to peruse our website at:
http://www.NIUSGulf.com and also of NIHQ at: http://www.nautinst.org
We would also like to encourage companies to sponsor their employees to attend the above seminar and to consider becoming sponsors of the event themselves.