Well, it has been a long time coming but July 11th is approaching quickly, and we are certainly looking forward to restrictions being lifted. While uptake in vaccinations has been good, we are going to err on the side of caution and for a bit longer we are asking our visitors to slip on a mask before entering the office. We will lift our masking policy on August 1 just to give everyone a bit more time to get vaccinated.
There has been a flurry of activity happening here at the MCAS. In the ten years that I have been with the association this past spring was by far the busiest training period that I can recall. We added additional classes and everyone of them sold out. The training subsidy provided the extra incentive for owners to send their staff on courses. Uptake among non-members was noticeable and we will be working to encourage those contractors to join the MCAS. The fall training program is set and already we have waiting lists for courses.
We hired a consultant this past spring to assist with our membership drive. He was able to fine tune our messaging and provide some “sales” training to our staff. To date we have reached out to over 400 mechanical contractors, and we are not done yet. Our membership numbers are up but we still have a long way to go as we believe every mechanical contractor should be a member of their association.
In the coming weeks we will be announcing details on a new partnership with Federated Insurance. I am pleased to let you know that we have renewed our partnership with Saskatchewan Blue Cross. There has never been a better time to look at group benefits for your employees as some new flexibility has been added to our program. You now have the option to customize your benefits plan to meet your needs. This is a game changer.
Nicole is working to add some new items to our advantage programs. We just announced a new cost savings program with Esso that allows members to receive discounts on their fuel purchases. Every dime saved adds up at the end of the day. We will continue to seek out other collaborations that we believe will benefit our members.