Association Update - July 2025
The last month has been a whirlwind of activity as we ran and subsequently recovered from the biggest events in the industry calendar – the 2025 Sign Makers Conference and Awards of Excellence. We were thrilled to have record numbers register to come along this year, with many coming along for their first time. It was incredible to connect with so many sign makers from across the nation. As it was the NZSDAs 60th anniversary, many industry veterans and former NZSDA President’s came along to reunite and share their wisdom with the younger generations. This reflects one of the associations key objectives, facilitating knowledge sharing and collaboration throughout the industry.
The Sign Display Awards of Excellence was a fantastic night. Entries for the awards reached pre-covid numbers, and we were thrilled to see 69 awards presented for some extremely high-quality projects. Congratulations to those who won awards, and to those who placed as finalists. This is not an easy thing to do! Congratulations also to our 2025 Notable Award winners! These awards are presented to the best in the industry, individuals who are truly worthy of the highest recognition.
To those who received their Master Sign Maker plaques on the night, seeing you all up on the stage was a historic moment for the industry. Your hard work, passion for learning, and commitment to giving back to the industry has led you to achieving the highest accreditation. Your attendance at conference is so meaningful as you pass your knowledge on to the rest of the industry and encourage every sign maker to strive for your level of excellence. Congratulations on your success!
It is now time to dive back into our regular routine, running webinars and regional meetings, and creating valuable resources for our membership. Our next regional meeting will be in Whanganui/Manawatu on 24 July. During member visits last year, we were asked to run a regional meeting in this area, so we hope to see many sign makers make the effort to come along.
We also have two webinars in the pipeline, a final session from ACC and one from Competenz on Employer Workshops. The Competenz webinar is particularly important for those who actively hire and train apprentices. I’d also encourage members to make the most of the ACC webinar to get all your questions and concerns addressed. We will add more webinars to this line-up in the coming months. Please do take the time to attend them, as they provide helpful and important updates and learnings.
On top of the conference and awards, we have also spent a lot of time this month representing the industry at Career Expos. A massive thank you to all those sign makers who came along and helped out with these! We’ve had a lot of interest in the Signee course and have a queue of young people keen to learn more about the industry and looking for work experience placements. If you are interested in taking on a young learner, please do let us know! This is the best way for us to bring more skilled workers into the industry and to ensure the future workforce. A reminder that the Signee course is available free of charge to all NZSDA members, and can be used to onboard new staff, or to bridge the gap for those in your team not working on the tools.
Ehara taku toa i te toa takitahi, engari he toa takitini.
My strength is not that of a single warrior, but that of many.
Ka kite ano,
Mikayla Hopkins
