Exclusively for credentialed members of SAMS© , NAMS Global©, and IIMS©

Welcome to Boatpokers

Purpose:

This reflected email list is designed to allow easy interaction between credentialed marine surveyors who are Boatpokers participants. Posting of questions and comments means all members will receive your email. Take a moment to consider the incredible resource that Boatpokers is, in that, you can ask a question of hundreds of experienced and skilled marine surveyors by sending one email.

The list is currently restricted to members in good standing of the noted organizations.  However, it is not a function of any of those organizations, it is not owned by them, and it is not controlled by them.

As a condition of membership, you are expected to conduct yourself in a professional and respectful manner.  The discussions on this reflector are not moderated.   Anything you post will go to everyone currently registered on the list.   Because of this, there are some common sense restrictions that apply, and there is a small list of do’s & don’t’s called “The Rules of Engagement“.

Click here for a short story about “Stupid Questions”.

The History of Boatpokers

In 1994 if you ran “marine surveyor” through a search engine, you would get about 12 hits.  It was then that Tom Benton, Jim Wood, Peggy Feakes and Jack Mackinnon started throwing “stuff” about marine surveying back and forth over email to each other.

Jim Wood actually figured out that he could set up a “group” list and send “stuff” to everyone at once.  As more and more marine surveyors were found to have email addresses, the list grew and grew.  To keep the list accurate, Peggy Feakes was anointed “Keeper of The E’s” which soon became simply the “E-Lady”.  This soon outgrew the reality of just having a “group” email list because the header of (To:) was getting much longer than any of the content postings.  Peggy enlisted the help of John Peeples who had the know how to set up a “Reflector” very similar to what we have now.  It was named the SAMSLIST, and all you had to do to belong was be a member in good standing with SAMS.

The list continued to grow, and it was determined that the list did not belong to SAMS, but to the “Group”.  SAMS did not control the list, and to avoid any misconceptions that it was an official function of SAMS, it was determined that the name should be changed.

Operation of the “List” was also growing into quite a chore, and it was decided that we needed someone who could do a good job of maintaining the list and operating the reflector for us.  That was when Don Robertson was enlisted to be the “Listmaster”.  The end result was the birth of “Boatpokers”.  It has grown well beyond what any of us ever thought it would in the beginning.  It has become a great place for marine surveyors to bounce ideas and questions around to a rather large group of their peers.

After Don Robertson’s passing, management was taken on by Geoff Grainger (SAMS© AMS). With much time and expense, Boatpokers 2.0 was born in 2023.

Please Enjoy Boatpokers, and remember it is as important to be a contributor. The power of Boatpokers is…if you ask a question, there are many who will answer you. We need both the questions and the answers. The SUM of experience in our little niche of professional services on Boatpokers is what makes it better than any book, website forum, or single mentor you can have.