The TSA National Congress, a new format and a new title for the team at the Textile Service Association.

The Congress was by invitation only and open to TSA premium supplier partners, CEOs and laundry owners. The Laundry & Cleaning Today team attended the event. Tina Gleed reports.

Held at the Hyatt Regency in Birmingham, over 70 attendees were welcomed with an opening address from TSA chairman Charles Betteridge. After the opening address where Betteridge discussed the tasks the association has encountered in the past and the challenges ahead, the delegates were introduced to the first speaker of the day, Matthew Syed (pictured).

Syed is one of the world’s most influential thinkers in the field of high performance and cultural change. He has worked with leading global organisations to build a mindset of continuous improvement.

Born in 1970 to a Pakistani father and Welsh mother, Syed attended a state school in Reading, UK, leaving at the age of 16 to focus on table tennis.

Syed became the British table tennis number one in 1995, this he maintained for almost a decade, winning the men’s singles at the Commonwealth Championships three times, and competed for Great Britain in the Olympic Games in Barcelona in 1992 and Sydney in 2000. Syed regularly writes for The Times and is a regular contributor to radio and television. He has presented a number of documentaries on mindset and performance for the BBC.

Following on from Syed, David Stevens took to the lectern introducing the team Shyju, Laura and the latest member Emma Andersson, who has joined on the finance side of the operation. Stevens continued to speak of the programmes the TSA has run during the past year: the Climate Change seminar; three energy surveys to assess the CCA performance of the association members; and the PPE seminar for the workwear sector. Boiler training was another programme run by Byworth Boilers for attendees to gain certification in this area.

The flagship Textile Services Management Course (TSMC) was a success with 26 attendees. This will be run again in 2020 and is aimed at new entrants to the industry and covers all topics from health and safety to finance and is not specific to laundry. £2,000 will be used from the Murray Simpson Foundation to go towards the course.

Other topics Stevens touched on were the Autumn Conference, the practice guide leaf lets produced by the TSA, women in the industry – from the laundry floor to board level, single use plastic in the laundry sector, cotton recycling, and the laundry cost index and how the industry engages the hospitality market in this area.

Finally, Stevens spoke of the big price tag survey and how to eradicate bacteria in industrial laundry – this is currently a collaboration project along with the TRSA and ETSA.

Tim Fanning was next up. Fanning is a director at Hatch Regeneris. His role at the congress was to discuss a recent study on the economic impact that the industry now has, and the different ways the sector generates economic value for the UK economy.

The investigation looked into areas such as the sector’s contribution to GDP, how many people it employs and how much tax the industry pays as a whole.

The survey carried out over the last few months deduced the total turnover for the sector was about £1.2 billion in the year surveyed. The sector employs 23,000 people contributing £0.8 billion to GDP and the sector is also generating £100 million in exchequer contributions through corporate taxes, income taxes etc all as direct contributions. Indirect contributions such as supply chains in the sector are spending £400million on UK suppliers and pays £450million in wages and salaries.

Joseph Ricci from the TRSA came over from the American marketplace to talk about the role the association has in the States, and how the different organisations can work together going forward by sharing information.

The associations from across the world already meet annually to share best practices and discuss key industry topics, with the last meeting held in London in October hosted by our own TSA.

The final session of the day was a panel discussion with Peter Egan – CEO Johnson Service Group, Linda McCurdy – President and CEO of K-Bro Linen Services and Julian Carr – chairman of Regency Laundry in Bath. The panel shared some personal insights from their many years in the industry whilst engaging in some challenging questions from the delegates. After the Congress delegates were treated to a cocktail reception followed by a formal dinner and entertained by the singing waiters!