BCAS: Continuing with the positive approach
August 10th 2009 The British Compressed Air Society (BCAS) is a unique organisation dedicated to providing support, training and assistance to the compressed air and vacuum industry and is well respected across Europe and beyond. We have worked over the last few years to create a more modern society that is able to respond to the wants and needs of its membership and to continue to attract additional members who see the benefits of being part of our organisation
When I took over as President of BCAS in November 2008, we knew that the next period of general business activity within the manufacturing sector was going to present our industry with some challenging times It is often in these situations that the true benefits of a Trade Association membership become apparent and this is especially the case for small and medium sized organisations who may have limited resources in certain business disciplines. Also, there is the wealth of knowledge that an association can offer and there will be schemes in place to assist their respective memberships. This is certainly the case with BCAS and many of our existing members have already seen the benefits.
Just two examples of how BCAS can assist are through the business support and insurance schemes that we operate. Members are able to take full advantage of free business advice on any matters plus a competitively priced insurance scheme – the combination of which may save you the cost of having to outsource these services.
In foreseeing that manufacturing industry was potentially heading for a difficult trading period, our aim for the next period was to ensure that we continued to follow a strategy involving ‘the three Rs’. Recruitment – with the continuing campaign to attract new members; Retention – to obviously retain as many members as possible and finally Revenue – to maximise all revenue streams that come into the Society.
However, within the current climate, BCAS continues to adopt a positive approach for growth. Our membership continues to run at record levels and our level of targeted activity – aimed at providing services to our members – has never been higher. In order to further improve our communication levels we have recently launched our new Website – www.bcas.org.uk – which includes new features and a special area for Members. One of our key functions is to support and provide technical back-up to our whole industry membership.
Whether you are a manufacturer or supplier, distributor / service provider or an end user of compressed air or vacuum equipment, BCAS is there to assist your activities. We continue to be the focus point for technical and legislative advice as well as providing a range of training courses designed to support our industry requirements. Advice on energy efficiency and our continued work with the Carbon Trust continues as the reduction in operational running costs of equipment and systems is still absolutely essential.
In addition to our existing activities, we are currently working on a number of new proactive initiatives which are again focussed on providing support in response to member’s requests. Our existing Trusted Trader scheme has now been extended to cover manufacturing companies and we intend to launch some new programmes later this year to assist our membership in their day-to-day activities.
Finally, our continued support of the AirUser publication, which is now into it’s 13th issue, demonstrates our continued commitment to supporting this industry- wide publication that keeps manufacturing industry up to date with available products and services and that will hopefully enable businesses to maximise the efficiency and performance of their compressed air or vacuum systems. More articles from British Compressed Air Society (BCAS): | 
