The year ahead: Barrie Construction Association

Barrie Construction Association executive director Alison Smith has sent a year-end report and e-letter to association members, reporting on the association’s achievements as members faced sometimes challenging business conditions.

She wrote:

Many members are now required to bid on projects farther and farther away from their home turf while others have had to lay off staff. Your board is fully committed to providing you with as many project opportunities as possible and to being the conduit that assists you with forging new and lucrative relationships.

On the other hand, in describing the association’s success as it enters its 24th year, she observed:

2014 was a banner year for the BCA as we converted our on-line plan room software in March to bring you BestBidz. The full complement of products (BestBidz, On Demand and SCAN 247) enables us to offer e-bidding and e-bonding:  fulfilling our commitment to expand the project opportunities by providing state-of-the-art platforms for Owners to distribute projects.

Other topics:

• The association hosted members and procurement professionals “at a first-of-a-kind round table meeting”in April.
• The association supported the Council of Ontario Construction Associations in the initiative for prompt payment legislation.
•  The Prompt Payment Act, 2013, or Bill 69, died on the floor of the legislature on May 2, 2014. Since then COCA has joined Prompt Payment Ontario (PPO).  PPO is made up of a diverse group of members including trade associations, labour union and the residential construction sectors, and was created with the mandate to promote the passage of prompt payment legislation in Ontario.
• Directors at a full-day board retreat in June reviewed in depth included “promotion of the trades (as it relates to the skilled trade shortage), revenue stability (including a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats analysis), board recruitment, mission and vision statement revision which will lead to a strategic planning session in 2015.”

Members received the complete year-end report in PDF format.