SAMRA elects 2011/12 council
At the recent Southern African Marketing Research Association (SAMRA) AGM in Johannesburg, the new council for 2011/12 was announced, with Prof Adré Schreuder to take over from Elsa Thirion-Venter as chair. The new council will assume their portfolios on 1 September 2011 and serve until 31 August 2012.
The new council is as follows:
| Name | Group | Portfolio | | Prof Adré Schreuder | director | chair |
| Jan Wegelin | director | chair elect/treasurer |
| Elsa Thirion-Venter | director | immediate past chair |
| Marna Kirchner | branch chair | Johannesburg branch chair |
| Juliet van Zyl | branch chair | Cape branch chair |
| Elsa Thirion-Venter | branch chair | Pretoria branch chair |
| Peter Highley | branch chair | KwaZulu chair |
| Liza Burmeister | branch chair | Namibia chair |
| Tania Scates | chairman's council | fieldworkers forum chair |
| Grand Lindhorst | chairman's council | research users forum (ruf) chair |
| Shirley Benney | chairman's council | SAMRA corporate chair |
| Elaine Alder | chairman's council | professional practice chair |
| Kobus Badenhorst | chairman's council | membership chair |
| Anina Maree | chairman's council | communications chair |
| Salome Barnard | communications portfolio | international communications portfolio chair |
| Monique Greenland | communications portfolio | internal communications portfolio chair |
| Schalk van Vuuren | membership portfolio | SAMRA journal chair |
| Kim Larsen | membership portfolio | conference and awards chair |
| Mzwandile Khanya | membership portfolio | membership diversity |
| Cletus Dube | membership portfolio | yearbook chair |
| Alex Kessel | professional practice portfolio | accreditation chair |
| Noluvuko Mathibe | professional practice portfolio | training and education chair |
| Leonie Vorster | professional practice portfolio | code of conduct chair |
| Leonie Vorster | professional practice portfolio | consumer protection act |
| Ronelle Colyn | professional practice portfolio | Sevices SETA chair |
Thirion-Venter reviewed the past year and, with SAMRA facing a number of industry-related as well as legislative challenges, Schreuder spoke about the way forward in terms of the association's focus areas and activities in the coming year:
- to ensure a well-regulated research industry through maintaining enhanced professional standards, creating increased awareness and providing quality information;
Jan Wegelin, Elsa Thirion Venter and Prof. Adré Schreuder
- to enhance the credibility and reputation of all SAMRA members (re-establish the relevance and credibility of professional marketing research) among existing and new research users;
- to position SAMRA as a credible authority and industry body representing members in regulatory challenges and relevance of the Consumer Protection Act (CPA) and the anticipated Protection of Private
Information Act;
- to increase participation and alignment with relevant industry organisations such as DMASA, ASA and other marketing related bodies;
- to diversify the membership base of SAMRA through a review of member categories and aggressive marketing efforts among researchers, users, academics and students;
- to finalise and obtain member buy-in of the SAMRA 2011 strategic plan;
- to implement and continuously measure progress of the 2011 strategic plan;
- to investigate the introduction of a fulltime secretariat (appointment of CEO) in SAMRA;
- to evaluate all functional portfolios in SAMRA and updating the SAMRA structure;
- to develop policy and operational guidelines for each portfolio;
- to offer a new updated conference format;
- to active canvas more research users and promote client attendance at annual conference;
- to enhance the quality of conference papers as a means to draw a wider and more diverse audience of delegates; and
- to investigate the further enhancement of the SAMRA researcher accreditation programme
The AGM was hosted by TNS Surveys in Randburg, Johannesburg.
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