Thank you to all who attended our Annual General Meeting held at Rosehill Racecourse in October. A couple of key areas were outlined at the AGM and I’ve included a short summary of the key topics below for those that couldn’t make it.

SCRIA Board Election

We extend our sincere thanks an appreciation to our retiring Board members Gary Bourke (President) and Rod See (Vice President) for all their tireless support and work help run SCRIA. As an organisation run by volunteers, the sacrifice of time and effort that contribution has been enormous and their support has been appreciated.

The CEO role that was held by Juleen McTaggart is now vacant again after her reconsideration of the role and being located in Sydney.

I extend a warm welcome to the new board members and appreciate their voluntary contribution to the Association and helping to promote our industry and provide support to our members. You will find in this newsletter a brief introduction of the new members.

RIA / SCRIA

The motion was accepted to hold off until after 6th January 2014 on any movement on the naming issue raised by RIA or until further correspondence has been received.

Other News

In other news SCRIA is now a member of the IICRCA. The IICRCA is the Trade Association arm of the IICRCA and by being a member of this association, we will be able to access the IICRCA member benefits when they have concluded development.

Priority Project List

The Board held a lengthy teleconference and have identified some key areas for development of SCRIA, which we have allocated to project teams for further development. The project teams will be reporting back the Board on a scope document within three weeks with regular progress updates scheduled.

The initial Project Teams consist of board members are as follows:

• Membership Structure – Clare, Jenny, Garry and Scott
• Membership Benefits – Michelle, Kenan
• Business Partner Program – Mark, Matt and Michelle

These are the immediate priority projects identified and we will be reaching out the members in the coming months seeking feedback and their input. If you have any direct feedback or wish to be involved in a project team, please do not hesitate to contact Annie at the SCRIA office on [email protected] or a member of the board.

Scholarship Program

We are opening up the SCRIA Scholarship Program again. The scholarship program is open to all members or their nominated employees and offers two different specialities. The attendee will be offered training to gain IICRC Certification and we follow the outcomes of training and the positive impact that it has on the employee and member organisation. The application process is simple and further details will be emailed to all members from the SCRIA office in the near future.

The Carpet Cleaning Scholarship consists of:

• IICRC Carpet Cleaning Certification
• IICRC Upholstery & Fabric Clean
• Advanced Stain Removal
• IICRC Health & Safety

The Restoration Scholarship consists of:

• Water damage
• IICRC Fire
• IICRC Mould Remediation
• Safety

This is a great opportunity to provide training and recognition to one of your employees (or yourself) and is open to SCRIA members only. It is by continuous training and up skilling we present the carpet cleaning and restoration as a ‘trade’ and improve and raise the profile of our industry.

SCRIA Website and Facebook Pages

We are currently undergoing some improvements and updating our website and changes will be ongoing to improve the look and feel of the SCRIA website.

Did you know that SCRIA has two Facebook pages? One Facebook page is open to the public and provides consumers with information about what is happening in SCRIA and what is happening in local state chapters. This Facebook page is open to everyone.

The SCRIA Members Facebook page is only open to currently financial members and provides members the opportunity to network and make contact with each other and to reach out and seek input on problems or new techniques that they have found work on the job and to share successes. As the members Facebook page is a member benefit, non financial members will be removed shortly, however if you wish to still remain on the page contact Annie and get your membership finances up to date.

The Facebook pages provide a great opportunity to reach and wide audience and when using the Facebook site both Facebook pages are to be used in a professional capacity and is governed by the SCRIA code of conduct. Any posts that are not of a professional nature and are considered to be agreeable in normal business context will be removed.

Newsletter & Meetings

To build consistency across the country, our state meetings will be organised at least every 2 months and the release of the SCRIA newsletter will fall in line with a bi monthly release for 2014.

Monthly Membership Option

As the annual membership renewals sent out earlier this year, I wanted to take the opportunity to remind those that haven’t renewed their membership, that the option of pay by the month is available. This works out to be $44 per month billed monthly.

2014 Annual Mould Conference

SCRIA will again be the Association sponsor of what is our industry’s key restoration conference to be held in Melbourne in May 2014.

There will be two SCRIA events one will be the drinks on arrival for conference attendees (SCRIA members receive complimentary drinks) and the Industry Panel Discussion (members only) on the 2nd morning of the conference.

The industry panel will be made up of industry experts and Scott McFadzen will be the moderator.