Minutes of the General MeetingWednesday 17^th February of 2010 MBA Offices NSW                                                                 

  01.   Presidents Welcome.John White introduced the New President Con Zarafetas of Conrina as the newly elected committee member taking over the role from Vince Agostino. John thanked Vince for his hard work and dedication to the applause of the attendees. Con went on to further thank Vince for his hard work and spoke of his honour at taking on the role of president. All attending were welcomed to the meeting at the new start time of 5.30 pm.  

02.  Minutes and Matters arising from previous minutesMinutes of the previous meeting dated 30 September 09 were passed trues and correct. Moved C. Vallelonga Seconded P. Gilbert   

 03.  Guest Speakers: Ted Walsh and Dimitri Barlas of Workcover NSW: Propping Walls document and Q&A time

Dimitri and Ted presented the booklet “Masonry Wall Safety During Construction Work”. The booklet was handed out to all attending, with extra copies given to supplier manufacturing companies fro distribution from their sales counters.      

The booklet is made up of 3 main sections.

2.           Plan & Preparation
3.           Identify and Assess the Risks
4.           Control the Risks

• Maximum unsupported wall heights
• That the booklet reveals no specific design of one particular bracing method
• That there is control for any propping system shared between contractor and head contractor.
• Propping should be referred to in submitted work method statement

A question was asked from the floor as to the process of fines from Workcover.

1. If a contractor has a situation, which reveals a non-immediate risk, he may be issued with a warning.

2. If a further visit to the site reveals that the risk is still imminent an improvement notice is issued.

3. If there is an immediate risk sited at a visit a fine of up to $1,000 may be issued if evidence supports the need. 

The issue was also raised of the policy of major construction companies for all workers to wear gloves safety glasses and long pants and sleeves. These directives are not mandatory by Workcover but are the issued policy of the builder, even though there are many builders who state that they are following Workcover directives. The issue of handrails on scaffolding up to 2 metres in height was raised, the representatives of Workcover stated that there was no law making handrails compulsory . CZ the new president stated that this issue must be followed up on and a working document to be created to alleviate an unnecessary ruling that is impractical. 

        04. Contractual and Industrial Issues    

The brick and Block Company has now been taken over by the Austral Group        and will be known as Austral Masonry

06. General Business

            Opinions were fielded from the attendees

·        We should move the event back into the city

·        The food was not as good as previous years

·        Attendance was poor.

·        DJ next year no band

                       The meeting was informed of the Think Brick Master Class                

  commencing February 23 at Chowder Bay in Sydney. MCA along with Authentic, Conrina,       DJD and Fugen are sponsoring the event.

The President spoke of new initiatives for the association and his vision for  the members taking full ownership of the walls. He went on to say that the MCA would endeavour to run courses this year to add vale to member companies. Some examples of courses are:

o       Plan Reading

o       Estimating

o       Wall Bracing

o       Shelf Angles

o       Roof Flashings for Bricklayers

The President also stated that although there was a vote to maintain monthly meetings that away meetings might be arranged to provide information to members at supplier locations eg. Nirimba Tafe, Adbri Masonry, Austral, Boral, and PGH.

There was also a suggestion from the floor that each meeting have an item on the agenda dedicated to one aspect of safety every meeting. This will be discussed at the next executive meeting.