President’s Message – Summer 2020

Welcome to 2020. Going by how fast 2019 went and the amount of issues that we as a Strata Community have had to deal with over the past 12 months, I don’t expect the coming year to be much different.

Our AGM was held on the 23 October 2019 and as previously noted Stephen Raff retired as he had reached his term limit and I thank him for his dedication to SCA over the years. As a result of this retirement, we welcome Mark Benson to the board. Mark is also a board member for SCA Victoria, and we look forward to working with Mark. Bill Coles and I were also re-elected for a further two-year term.

Following on from 2019 issues that SCA will still be working through will be building defects, including the ongoing cladding crisis, responses to government inquiries, review of the constitution, a new strategic plan and instigating discussion papers with the intent of driving policy and legislation change on those issues that affect strata communities. This is where our Strata Leading Change Forums are becoming so important as it gives members the opportunity to instigate the discussion and drive the agendas. We welcome any suggestions from members on future topics for these forums.

With this we held another Strata Leading Change Forum late November with the discussion this time centred on Insurance. Thirty-five leaders of the industry met in Sydney where we discussed the current challenges relating to the availability and affordability of insurance, including the high statutory charges that make up between 20-45% of premiums, the ACCC report recommendations and the current commissions-based structure. There were some valuable outcomes from the discussion and SCA will now commence working on these and update members in due course.

The mission statement for Strata Community Association is to provide members services and to be the leading voice for the strata community and its members with the tag line – The Voice of Strata. In 2020, you can expect the SCA voice to be louder and stronger than it has been in the past.

In 2020, you can expect the SCA voice to be louder and stronger than it has been in the past.

Events form an integral part of the SCA calendar with over 70 events scheduled across the various SCA offices in the first six months of 2020. With these many events we realise that it’s difficult for members to attend them all; this is why more and more education events are being put online via webinars and the like. I would encourage all members to look at your events calendars and support your local SCA offices and don’t forget the requirements of CPD points for your accreditation and licensing renewals (where applicable). I would like to thank our education partner Kelly + Partners for their support for our International Study Tour which is being held in Dubai in mid-February.

A big thank you to our national business partners BCB, CHU, Grace Lawyers, Savant Energy and Macquarie Bank. Our partnerships extend well beyond financial support with their knowledge and expertise being provided to SCA in a variety of areas and I encourage all of our members to continue to support those who support our association.

I would like to acknowledge and thank my fellow directors for their support and commitment to SCA together with our national office staff lead by our CEO Alisha Fisher for providing support to our members and the board, and I look forward to meeting members around the country in 2020.