Entries are open for the 2018 Paint & Panel Bodyshop Awards which this year has two new awards, new sponsors, a new judge and a change of state for our night of nights.
Do you run a below average business with terrible staff? You don't? Well why not throw your hat in the ring and nominate your business or one of your great team members for the 2018 Paint & Panel Bodyshop Awards?
Our platinum sponsors Axalta Coating Systems and Compass Claims are both major supporters of the awards for the third year running. A big thank you to both companies.
Welcome to AkzoNobel who have come on board as supporting sponsors for a new award – Digital Excellence.
Speaking of judges, joining editor Sam Street and veteran awards judge Neil Powell is Steve Lozenkovski of the Bears Group. He'll be heavily involved in judging our Best Practice awards. These include the Axalta Sustainability Award – which many winners have felt is the most important award of all as it demonstrates that they run a sound business that's here to stay.
Best customer experience is another one to proudly display at you customer interface point. There's also Operational Excellence, Rising Star for the under 35s, the Innovation award, the Best Customer Experience award and Country Repairer of the year. Both Rising Star and Country Repairer are entered by making a video. We say it every year – we're not expecting MGM studios production quality. You can make it with a smartphone – it's the rising star or the country shop that we're looking at. Alternatively, if you want to get fancy then why not get someone else to make it and use it as a Google advert and on your website and social media channels?
There are so many fantastic mentors in this industry who dedicate time to support and train apprentices and youngsters starting out in the industry. Do you know one? Then nominate them for the inaugural Outstanding Mentor award.
We'll be in touch with TAFEs initially asking them to nominate people from repair businesses who have excelled at supporting apprentices. However, if you want to nominate someone in your business or nominate yourself you are most welcome to do so.
We will be sending nominees and nominators a link to a Survey Monkey form to detail why the individual should be considered for the award. We will want you to tell us what level of onsite training is available, how apprentices are encouraged and what other learning and other support is given.
Apart from the video entries all of the best practice awards require each nominee to fill out a Survey Monkey form to tell us about what makes their business a winner in that category. Periodically we'll be sending nominees emails to confirm their nomination and their willingness to take part in the awards. A short list will be created for judging and these state finalists will be notified when this will take place. The judges try to visit at least five shops per day and spend two days in each state and are therefore inflexible about the day and sometimes the time of the visit.
Thank you to our supporting sponsors Car Craft Accident Repair Group, Norton St Gobain, Collision Repair Expo, Glasurit, AkzoNobel and MTAA who make these best practice awards possible.
Join us for the night of nights
Each of the winners is presented their award at a glittering gala dinner which this year will be held in Melbourne. The whole industry is invited to join us to celebrate excellence in the autobody repair arena. We know that it's difficult for you to be constantly taking time out of the business to attend events so we'll be holding our LIVE conference in the afternoon of Friday, October 12 and the awards gala in the evening. We are also planning shop tours for the previous day – one to visit some outstanding autobody repairers and one to visit outstanding retail outlets in case you would like to bring partners who don't work in the industry and make a long weekend out of it. We'll be announcing details online soon.