CICA SA chair Mark Eberhard breaks down the happenings in South Australia and what is ahead for 2023.
CICA South Australia has kicked off the year well. After the anti-social COVID-19 years it was great to be able to host the ‘Cranes for a Cause’ Day once again. It was an event that saw 11 of the state’s crane companies come together to give generously to the community and raise money for a worthy cause. This year we were honoured to support ‘Walk with Wings’, an organisation that offers support, and journeys alongside those who experience pregnancy loss. For the first time, ‘Cranes for a Cause’ was held at the Torrens Parade Grounds which meant kids and families had ample room to walk around, climb in and get close up to the cranes.
Thank you to the organisers and everyone who participated on the day, your collective efforts made a huge impact on the community and by the looks on some of the kids’ faces, it’s something they won’t forget in a hurry.
The next day, Patrick Cran from CICA ran a CrewSafe training day: Fleurieu Cranes, Crane Services, Load 28 and McMahon Services all participated in demonstrating to the South Australian Construction Safety Alliance (SACSA), how comprehensive and beneficial CrewSafe is as a crane VOC.
SACSA observed that Verification of Competency is a matter of immense importance to the crane industry and construction safety, and that CrewSafe has the three-fold benefit of; improving skills; safety and on-site productivity. As a result, they have agreed to nominate CrewSafe as the VOC of choice.
I am incredibly proud of our members and association for this result, together we are stronger, and I encourage all those who work with cranes to get behind these types of initiatives that benefit everyone and work towards ensuring that everyone comes home from work safely.
I’d also like to remind our members that the next CICA SA regional meeting will be in Port Augusta on 5 May 2023. It is important that we recognise the invaluable contribution our regional centres make to this state, and I encourage you all to come along and be a part of the action.
This year, serving on the CICA SA branch executive are: Peter Busby, Adam Culf, Mark Kuhn, George Protopsaltis, Marcus Rigney, Rodger Weste, Cheryl Woodhart, Les Loehr as Vice Chair and myself as Chair. We welcome any ideas or feedback that you may have, so come along to the branch events which can be found on the CICA website (www.cica.com.au/states-sa) and have a chat.
I look forward to seeing you all in Port Augusta.