Monitoring Protocol Workshop



During 4-8 July 2011, the SEAT Project held a Monitoring Protocol Workshop at Kasetsart University, Bangkok, Thailand. The sessions were held at the meeting rooms of KU Home and Faculty of Fisheries. Field work was conducted in one of the tilapia cage sites in Suphanburi province. Analytical lab exercises were conducted at the Department of Fishery Biology Laboratory of the Faculty of Fisheries at KU. The workshop, organized by WP7-Wageningen University partners (Prof Paul van den Brink & PhD student Andreu Rico) with logistics & technical support from SEAT-KU, was attended by representatives of all Asian partners and those from WP4-University of Stirling (Prof Lindsay Ross, Ms Lynn Munro) and WP6-University of Copenhagen (Dr Anders Dalsgaard, Mr Jesper Clausen).

The workshop was held to discuss the monitoring protocols for work within WP4 (Environmental Models), WP6 (Food Safety and Public Health) & WP7 (Environmental Contamination), as activities have to be done in the same areas with the same stakeholders and within the same time frame, as much as possible. 

Each Asian partner was represented by the researchers in charge of SEAT project work or the respective WP. The Asian partners present were Bangladesh Agricultural University (Dr Ripon, Hero-WP6, Ali), Cantho University (Dr Phuong, Dr Son, Phu-WP6), Shanghai Ocean University (Prof Jiang Min, Li Shikang-WP7, Li Kang-WP6), and Kasetsart University (Dr Kriengkrai, Dr Prapansak-WP6,7, Jugk-WP7, Bow-WP4&7, Jigsz, Beach-WP4&7, Ben-WP6, Pawin-WP6). WP numbers after researcher names refer to their specific work assignments within SEAT. Those without WP numbers after their names are focusing on all the three WPs (4,6,7) and overseeing work on them. Also attending were Dr Jason Weeks of CEFAS (WP11) and Dr Henry Madsen (WP6-UCopenhagen).

The workshop was a good approach in integrating the activities of different work packages in a big project like SEAT. Through the exchange of information and deliberation of issues and plans, the whole group was made aware of what each WP and researcher wanted to do, what could and could not be done, and the potential and constraints of proposed activities. The discussion was not only limited to among European partners since the ideas and insights as well as background knowledge of the Asian partners were also taken into consideration.

Surely this is one way of acting on the need to maximise and/or make efficient use of resources, at the same time strengthening team work and supporting each other to achieve the WP deliverables.

It is hoped now that the plans made will come into fruition through the group effort of all concerned.

Photo credits: Chairit Thammachit

Post-SOS Workshop meetings

The day after the SOS workshop, the SEAT project team had a meeting to discuss outcomes of the workshop. The priority was to translate all group outputs into English. The facilitation team who took care of each stakeholder group translated their group's outputs. Each team had a foreign team member to assist in writing up the responses. It was crucial for the responses to be translated into English as the SOS workshop report had to be prepared in both languages. It would also help the team in synthesizing the responses and summarising major issues that came up during the workshop.

Workshop outputs especially on sustainability indicators will be included in posters on sustaining value chains of tilapia and shrimp in Thailand. These posters will be distributed to the stakeholders and the general public to inform and raise awareness on sustainability aspects.

Pre-SOS workshop preps

SEAT-KU team started preparing for the SOS workshop months earlier. While the integrated survey was still being conducted in February, we already started to identify potential participants to be invited, based on the guidelines in the Deliverable Protocol from UoS. The venue and the dates have already been discussed and agreed upon with the UoS team (Dave, Francis) when we (Kriengkrai, Arlene, Wanwichanee) were in Kochi in January. We knew that we needed to start the preparations sooner due to the various project activities going on and coming, as all work have to be coordinated and managed accordingly. The SOS workshop is an important part of the project especially for us local partners, wherein we have to be fully involved in all aspects.

A list of potential participants was drawn up together with spare invitees. These came from our network of contacts along the value chain, as well as from the existing list of key informants and survey respondents of the SEAT project. As the SOS workshop is a local meeting in Chanthaburi, the participants have to be from the local area as much as possible esp the shrimp producers and other local stakeholders. However, since the project is working on both shrimp and tilapia, we also invited representatives of our respondents in nearby Chachoengsao to represent the tilapia producers.

In addition, the main logistics involved which was the actual venue, in this case a conference room, had also to be booked in advance. So we identified the venue of the workshop to be in a local hotel and preliminary contacts were made as early as March to secure booking of rooms and meeting rooms. Subsequent contacts were made later on in person and through email, phone and fax for further confirmations.

Actual invitations were posted in April after the long Thai new year holiday, and 3 main confirmations were made to the invitees during the weeks until the day prior to the workshop. First confirmation was to ensure they have received the invitations and to ask about their acceptance. Second was to follow-up on confirmations and to invite other replacements. And third (during the 2 days prior to the workshop) to remind those attending of the workshop date and time.

Logistical as well as technical preparations were also done simultaneously. Logistics involved confirmations of bookings for hotel, vehicles, and related matters; staffing and staff orientation for the workshop proper; and materials preparation.

Technical preparations involved the finalising the programme and contents of the workshop, analysis of survey data and extracting major highlights to formulate questions for focus group activities, preparing materials for the exercises, and preparing various presentations from project information to project results. All materials in English were translated into Thai.

A skeletal staff was working in the office on the SOS workshop while the rest of the Thai team were in the field for the WP5&WP8 field work during the month of April & May. The week prior to the SOS workshop, there were only 3 working days due to the Thai holidays, so it was good that we started our preparations well in advance. Since the team was leaving for Chanthaburi on Sunday 22 May, we held an  SOS workshop orientation for staff on 20 May, a Friday. We gave a briefing about the SOS workshop and what are the detailed activities to be done. Esp. important was the intensive facilitation and documentation during the focus group activities. And we informed everybody that we have to be flexible and ready for any changes that will be made during the preparation days and the actual SOS workshop.

The two days 23-24 May in Chanthaburi were hectic and intensive as the SEAT-KU team met with the U of Stirling team who are coordinators of the project. We were joined also by the PI of the U of Bergen and  a representative each of the Asian partners, namely from Bangladesh Agricultural University, Cantho University and the Shanghai Ocean University. So there were 20 of us all in all, working together, even late into the night until the early morning hours to finalise preparations for the 25 May SOS workshop.

Thanks to everybody for all the help and support you have provided.