With a newly elected and ‘re-energised’ committee, along with member engagement initiatives planned for the coming year, the Building Service Contractors Association of Australia (BSCAA) Victoria believes it’s a new era for the association, from which its members will only benefit.
By Keith Watts
The Building Service Contractors Association of Australia (BSCAA) Victorian division held its annual AFL Grand Final lunch at Melbourne’s iconic Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) on 25 September to the background sound check of the event’s entertainment – singers Tom Jones and Ed Sheeran.
The event was sponsored by Central Cleaning Supplies and was attended by 138 members and guests, more than double of previous years. Master of ceremonies for the day was Anthony Daniher of Danihers Facility Management who kept things moving along on schedule.
Matt Marsh, BSCAA Victorian vice president, of Sebastian Property Services welcomed members and guests, thanked Central Cleaning for its sponsorship of the lunch, as well as national partner, AustralianSuper, and gave an update on some important association changes.
Marsh announced the recently elected BSCAA Victoria committee; starting with Paul McCann, as president (CMC Property Services), himself as vice president (Sebastian Property Services), Stephane Faye’d-herbe as treasurer (CIA Group), Carolyn Journeaux as executive director, and committee members Joe Kaplan (Kaplan Services Pty Ltd), Marina Juric (Border Cleaning), Anthony Daniher (Danihers Facility Management), Rob Fearnley (Staples Australia Pty Ltd), Elias Stamas (GJK Property Services) and Martin Leach (Bendigo Property Services.
President McCann was absent but had pre-recorded a video message outlining the new era of business for the Victorian BSCAA.
“The new committee has spent the last couple of months speaking to members to garnish their support for the industry, and for the BSCAA, and the feedback has been very positive,” shared McCann. “It’s a difficult time for any member association; numbers are falling across the board but we’ve had a great response to some initiatives we plan to put in place, such as utilising LinkedIn to get more information to individuals, not just companies. We’ve also recently launched Tenderlink, of which all member companies will have access to tenders as part of their membership and will be rolled out in the new year.”
“We’ll be looking at other ways to improve member engagement too, and I hope that you all share our view that with these initiates, it’s going to be a new era for BSCAA,” he added. McCann finished off by asking members to support the annual excellence awards, designed to recognise outstanding achievements by employees who provide service in the property industry across six categories, to be held 14 November. “It’s a great function to recognise the cleaners and supervisors who do such a great job for all of us and our industry,” he reflected.
The guest speaker over lunch was AFL Premiership coach, Denis Pagan, who gave an entertaining address on his history, an insight into his career as a junior and then senior AFL coach, and about what motivates him. Teams coached by Pagan have participated in five pre-season, 14 day grand finals for 12 Premiership victories. He drew on his 28 years of coaching experience and talked about the key ingredients for attaining sustained success – team alignment, leadership, goal setting, developing self belief and overcoming adversity. “The harder you try, the luckier you get,” he said. “The worst thing is disunity.”
Vice president Marsh and committee member Stamas announced that entries for the 2014 AustralianSuper Industry Excellence Awards were open and encouraged members to get in their nominations. The Awards presentation night will be held at The Hilton Hotel, East Melbourne on Friday 14 November 2014.