The Service Managers Council held its second meeting for 2010 with eleven members attending at Queensland Thermo King's (QTK) new facility at Darra. Chairman, Mr John Edwards of Hastings Deering welcomed all Council members and Guest Speaker, Mr Chris Kroehn, Business Manager for SkillsTech Australia.

The meeting commenced with Mr Chris Kroehn speaking to the Council about SkillsTech’s official opening of the heavy vehicle training centre at Acacia Ridge on Friday 13th August. Mr Kroehn advised that the officiating party will include
Ms Judy Spence, state member for Sunnybank, and Mr Graham Perrett, Federal Member for Moreton. CVIAQ CEO, Mr Brett Wright, is also included in the officiating party due to CVIAQ's intimate involvement with SkillsTech in the early stages of the centre's development, in particular, with the CVIAQ Service Managers council providing much support and technical advice.

Mr Kroehn also spoke on the key equipment that the centre had secured including a state of the art MAHA chassis dynamometer as well as brake and electrical testing equipment.
 
Mr Kroehn concluded with a request to industry to support SkillsTech in a resource loan or donation program to update and increase the quantity of technical equipment apprentices use during their blocks of training.

Mr Edwards moved on to the business of the meeting and invited Mr Woodland to report on the Industry Ambassadors Program. Mr Woodland reported on the program currently underway advising that Mr Michael Gilbert, prior to finishing his Skills Formation Strategy contract, had secured eleven mechanical apprentices from the membership in their final stages of training to participate in the program. The program provides the group with leadership and communication skills to prepare them as industry ambassadors to promote the industry as a career choice option at schools, career nights and industry events.

Mr Woodland then reported on the CVIAQ Apprentice of the Year Awards and circulated the 2010 nomination form. Mr Woodland advised that there were a number of changes to the application form to provide the judging panel with more information for them to make decisions on the award winners.
 
CVIAQ’s Technical & Regulatory Officer, Mr John Samson, presented his technical report to the council which included the Federal Government's draft proposal to alter aspects of Circular 0-3-6 Trailer certification, changes to the Federal Governments Technical Liaison Group (TLG) and State Government's T2 engimneering certification for tow truck design.  

Mr Woodland reported on the progress of the Schools to Industry tours being organised for 2010. Mr Woodland advised that four tours are currently in progress and that due to the lack of assistance from the Community Partnership Brokers who have replaced the Local Community Partnership Groups (LCPs) the preparation of the tours has been more time consuming. Mr Woodland added that he has been developing a list of contacts within each of the major state high schools in the brisbane districts which will make the job of orgainising the tours easier in future years. 

As there was no further business the Chairman closed the meeting at 11.00am.

Following the tea break, Mr Paul Kulpa ran the QASA Automotive Industry Advisory Committee Meeting. At the conclusion of the meeting, Mr Colin Apps and Mr Nick Blignaut of Queensland Thermo King provided some history on QTK and hosted a site inspection of their new facility.