Silvercard

SILVERcARD MEwP Mentoring Courses have now been held in Christchurch and Auckland. This course is designed to ensure that the Silvercard MEWP training package is delivered to a consistent standard nationwide as well as familiarize new trainers to silvercard with the course content, the assessment criteria and the administrative elements of the Silvercard portal. Work is well underway with the Working at heights course awarding unit standard 23229 and you should all expect to see this in the near future. This is in direct response to multiple requests from our members. Content for the APEX Rigger Foundation Course is now complete and we are currently navigating the process of moving the training package to an online platform. This course is aimed at new or seasonal staff joining the ranks of our Party and Events sector. This will prove a great resource to not only complement your new employee induction packages, but also the inhouse training your new employees will receive. This course will be delivered online and will be PC and device compatible to suit the varying requirements of our members. The Level one and Level two APEX Marquee Riggers courses are currently being revised. They will evolve to complement the addition of the Rigger Foundation Course to the overall Marquee Rigger training package. They will also receive minor improvements that were identified during the delivery of the courses during the previous quarter. I have been traveling all over the North Island conducting full inspections where I can for APEX accreditation. There is some big news on the horizon within this space and it is my intention to get as many of our APEX members accredited as soon as possible so that they may take full advantage of the proposed benefits. This is a timely reminder to make contact with me for any upcoming installs for those yet to receive APEX accreditation, as well as to submit any applications for recognition of prior learning for your Marquee Riggers as soon as possible! Dates will be released in the near future for further level one and level two Riggers courses for those that require it.

I have observed the following trends when conducting the audits. • Our members are doing a great job out there. In a way it feels that for the most part, I am merely collecting evidence that our members are operating to a compliant level. In fact, many of our members are well positioned to achieve Best Practice levels with minor tweaks to their systems and/ or processes. Bear in mind that Best

Practice is above and beyond a compliant level of operation. • You don’t have to be a big organization to be a good one. Effective

Workplace Health and Safety

Systems are scalable to the size of the operation or PCBU. Some of our members who are operating smaller business are doing as well if not better than some of the larger players out there. • We have some extremely talented and experienced Marquee Riggers within our ranks. I have been nothing short of impressed by the skills, knowledge and customer service being delivered by all the teams I have observed erecting

Marquees. The willingness to share their knowledge and experience has been impressive with some teaching me a few tricks of the trade along the way. It would be an understatement to say that 2022 has been a challenging year for us all. Rest assured knowing that we have been manning the pumps and are still working towards all the goals that we set out to achieve at the beginning of the year. If I am honest...Rodney has snuck a few extras in! ■ See you all at conference, JH