Dan Knutson, President — We have had a busy winter, working on a few different projects. Since we were last together I have participated in several meetings and a planning session of the Public Safety Review Committee (PSRC). One of the goals of the committee is to close gaps in the public safety net that is supposed to cover the province. From the SBOA’s perspective this means addressing the disparity in the use of licensed Building Officials and building bylaws throughout the province. This issue has at least two pieces; there are not enough Building Officials to go around and there are still quite a few municipalities who have not recognized the necessity of adopting building bylaws and hiring a Building Official. As part of our work we identified the problems and proposed solutions. We believed that there should be more public funding for training and for training program development. We also believed that we had to do a better job of getting the information out there about the impor tance of using Building Officials and the application of building bylaws. Other out comes from the PSRC included; formulating standard joint use agreements to facilitate the sharing of resources so that individual municipalities would not have to supply a complete fire and rescue service by themselves. The work on the public safety review committee lead us into the next project.
In an effort to get the information out there we were invited to join with Building Standards and set up a booth at both SARM and SUMA conferences. Although we erected the booth up in a hurry I believe we were well received. Next year we will try to do a better job of outfi tting the booths with more information as well as perhaps getting on the agenda for the breakout sessions. And of course this winter we ran two more training sessions which were well attended. It is very encouraging to see the strong support. Our members are showing us with their strong numbers they want to improve their understanding of the Building Code. We are continually working at improving the delivery of building code training. We are looking for more accessibility in delivering programs that meet the needs of our members and our stakeholders in this province. As part of that initiative we are looking to the province for more support for program development and to that end there will be 3 resolutions put before you today that we will send to the Minister of Corrections if we can get your support. Remember this is your SBOA please let us hear your suggestions and your concerns.