Interest in forming the PCMA started to build on February 2019.
Russell Neal, Revision Zero’s Managing Director acknowledges and thanks all participants who made the time to attend the meeting. In attendance were 21 participants representing 12 companies.
Russell Neal introduces himself to everyone, giving an outline of his career, how it progressed from an apprentice Boilermaker/Welder through to his now owning a steel detailing company. How he become involved in steel detailing in The Philippines. He touched on his involvement in the NISD (National Institute of Steel Detailing). He saw his role in the NISD and his lengthy time in The Philippines as an opportune position to be able to look at forming an organization similar to those like the NISD in the US and the Australian Construction Modelers Association in Australia.
Greg shared his knowledge in creating such organizations, he enlightens our participants about the purpose, benefit and downfalls of each objective.
Greg encompassed the whole principal of growing the organization in a neutral and noncompetitive, noncombative environment. Noting that it was much better to your competitors and allies all together, working together jointly on the challenges facing the industry today, rather than being on the outside looking in.
During Greg’s talk, Mr. Romeo Francisco and Demy Chaves from VTS noted that a similar organization had been formed more than ten years ago. It did not continue long and was more social event based.
Mr Neal further reinforced that as the group represented those is many different markets that whilst the NISD was heavily mentioned, that the association was not formally linked to any other organizations around the globe. He did discuss the benefits of joining the NISD for those members whose predominate market is the US and also outlined the Individual Detailer Certification Program, the CD – BIM Certification and the Quality Procedures Program, all attendees were handed the NISD brochure on these programs.
Also shared to all was the NISD brochure “Improve… Your Business, Your Career, and the Steel Detailing Profession”. Mr Neal thought not only may some be keen to look at membership of the NISD, he also felt it was a great organization and one that we could replicate in our own group.
Russell also invited our participants to join the NISD annual meeting in April 2019. Also advised that it was opportunely organized prior to the AISC conference and located at the same venue, making it a great week for those travelling from overseas. The NISD agenda and meeting details were assimilated to all.
After the break a general discussion took place, the agenda for this meeting was purposefully targeted at an introduction to the forming of an association and to get to know each other. Whilst many were keen to start tackling some of the issues, everyone held back and focused more on the formation aspects.
During the discussions Steve Coates shared some of his experiences around his time in Manila and with Crystal Steel, this raised some talk about the lack of training overall, with the growth of the industry in Manila growing significantly in recent times, the experience has been diluted. Many companies do their own training of their teams but certainly it was a hot topic as to how we as an association could work towards a more partisan approach to growing skills and knowledge.
Mike Fischer from Fischer Design Group raised a valid point. Would it not be a thing to consider, rather than forming a new organization with all the additional organizational structure set up and duplicate membership costs, to have this group as a Philippine chapter of the NISD. Mr Neal replied that whilst he had considered that when thinking about trying to start this group, because the Philippine demographics were slightly different than those organizations geographically based in one country, members markets included many other countries outside of the US and Canada.
He had hoped that the Philippine association would be very closely linked to those like the NISD in the US and the ACMA in Australia as a very high percentage of work done and clients were based in those countries. Possibly a discussion with these organizations could be had regarding sister organization membership deals to help reduce cost of multiple organization memberships.
Mr Richard Duplain, representing Exact Detailing asked the group whether we should be considering this organization to encompass other countries within the region, India, Indonesia for example.
The was a general discussion and whilst long term it was agreed it could be a good thing to look at, for now, overall it was decided that we best start with just the Philippines as there was enough challenges for us to address in our corner of the world.
Russell Neal addressed the group noting there were two items on the agenda that needed discussing before closing the meeting. The first being the name of the group.
Due to the venue requiring a name of the group, Mr Neal temporarily named it Philippine Construction Modelers Association. He explained his reasoning behind this. The group is being formed for all those in the Philippines who do some sort of modelling in the construction industry. Whilst there are a number of steel detailers there are so many other aspects of construction modelling represented.
The Australian Institute of Steel Detailing (AISD) recently name changed to the Australian Construction Modelers Association (ACMA). It did make sense for Mr Neal to follow suit and have a name that would associate us to similar organizations around the world and to bring together those outside steel detailing.
Mr Reegan Lawton from Steel Pencil noted to the group that Steel Pencil had construction modelers within there website name and was concerned there maybe some confusion with some people calling his company in error. It was decided that we should leave a name for now and give everyone a time to think and to decide at the next meeting.
The last item on the agenda was the next meeting. Mr Neal expressed that the group should focus the next meeting as a formation meeting. Needing to still hold back on working through the multitude of topics and objectives that everyone seemed very enthusiastic about, but instead concentrate entirely on the formation of the association.
The group put together some points of discussion and the start of an agenda was created.
Topics for the next meeting agenda:
✓ Meeting Scheduling
✓ Association Membership Rules
✓ Where Meeting Takes Place & How We Pay. Possibly Sponsorships or Members Pay to
Attend
✓ Membership Cost
✓ Election of Officers, namely the ff:
o Chairman
o Secretary
o Treasurer
✓ Bank Account
✓ Social Media/Sites along with Sponsorship
✓ Constitution Writing/Bylaws
✓ Directory of Members
Russell Neal also asked for help identifying further companies that we should be inviting to these meetings. If everyone adds to the list with those, they know we could certainly grow the numbers attending and contributing. He asked that the attendees could email him well before next meeting with companies, names of owners and contact details so invites can be sent.
There were discussions around the most suitable time for these meetings to take place into the future. Traffic and busy schedules can make it difficult to attend during daytime and the possibility of evening meetings was raised. This will be discussed at the formation meeting.
It was agreed for now to have the next meeting on the Tuesday 26th March 2019 at 1:00pm, location will be once again the Richmonde Hotel Ortigas.
Below is the Anti-Trust Statement read aloud at the beginning of each meeting.
