Above:  Chris Wright, Paul Smith, Nigel Davies, Trevor Cunningham, Bill Porteous and Grant Cunningham

The FESPA Australia Training Fund was launched last week at FESPA Australia’s Open House event, hosted by Cactus Imaging, where FESPA life members and trustees of The FESPA Training Fund collectively presented the fund with $94,000 of seed funding.

The FESPA Australia Training Fund is mandated by the association’s Constitution for use in training and development programs within the speciality printing industry. 

In the first presentation, life members Trevor Cunningham and Bill Porteous, as well as trustee Paul Smith, presented the proceeds of the Glen Crerar scholarship fund, established in 1990 in memory of the late past president Glen Crerar. 

Cunningham spoke of Crerar, the fund’s values and his wish that these grants will continue to offer opportunities to young people well into the future.

In the second presentation, Porteous presented the proceeds of a cheque for $60,000, representing the NSW region’s funds up until its amalgamation with the Federal body in 2017.  

“FESPA Australia is one of the oldest printing associations, and these funds were raised by generations of hardworking volunteers and generous sponsors of the screen printing industry. We are honoured to take the baton and work hard to apply and preserve these funds. By protecting those funds in our Constitution, we are ensuring that from now into the future, our Association will have a laser-sharp focus on the training needs of our industry,” FESA Australia president Nigel Davies said.

“There is much to do. The work of other FESPA associations inspires us, particularly FESPA UK’s Next Generation fund, which promotes networking among young people and leverages social media to connect young people at scale. Associations must coordinate our approaches and funding to ensure a balanced approach to our industry’s needs.”

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