The year is already off to a great start with many tremendous member milestones to celebrate this year.
A MESSAGE FROM PRESIDENT, GRACIE FERREIRA
New Year, New Hope and A New Excellence Awards Format Like many of our members, I was excited to begin the new year with renewed energy and a chance to leave the difficulties of 2020 in the past. But in this edition of Canberra Builder, we also get a chance to remember the incredible things that our members have accomplished over the last year, which is why the theme of this edition is ‘The Celebration of Achievements and Tales of Triumph’. We welcomed a new intake of apprentices earlier this year, which is a cohort that is full of enthusiasm and passion for carpentry, ready to be led by our Group Training Team. You can read more about them on page 60. The year is already off to a great start with many tremendous member milestones to celebrate this year. In this edition we look at the local story of MBA Premium Partner and 20-year member, Harvey Norman Commercial, and their valuable history with the Canberra construction industry. They also provided the wonderful photo for the cover of this edition, which symbolises the teams move into the commercial hospitality space. MBA Excellence Awards winner, Preferred Builders, is also celebrating an incredible 20-year Member Milestone. On page 34 we chat with Paul Kerr from Preferred Builders to find out about his favourite projects over his many years of MBA membership. We’ve also introduced a new feature on page 58 titled ‘Where Are They Now?’, as we find out what Chris Walmsley, the winner of the 3rd year Carpentry Apprentice Encouragement Award at the 2008 Master Builders ACT Apprentice Awards, is up to now.
Be sure to take a look at the ‘In The News’ section on page 11, where we showcase awards, media coverage and special mentions our members received outside of our organisation over the last year for their fantastic work. We are also kicking off our first MBA Alumni mentoring/advisory session, a free service provided to our members which we hope will be very useful in these uncertain times. For more information contact Master Builders ACT on (02) 6175 5900. We have now released the Women in Construction events calendar located on page 63, this year promises to be bigger and better. I look forward to seeing many of you there. To ensure the safety and COVID-19 compliance of the Excellence Awards this year, we will be running two separate events titled the Housing Awards and the Construction Awards. The Housing Awards will encompass all of our residential categories, while the Construction Awards will focus on the civil and commercial projects. Two events will give us double the chance to celebrate all of the outstanding Winning Homes and Winning Projects that will be awarded this year. On behalf of MBA ACT, I would also like to extend my congratulations to Simon Butt on his recent re-election as President of MBA National. I would also like to thank him and his team for the leadership shown in 2020 which ensured our industry remained open, thus saving many jobs and helping the economy. On behalf of the entire Master Builders ACT team, I wish you all a fantastic year ahead and we look forward to seeing you in our office and at our events throughout the year.
MASTER BUILDERS ASSOCIATION NEWS EDITION 1 2021
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