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AEG is part of the Electrolux Group so it will no doubt be a badged Zanussi/Electrolux type affair with an AEG badge on it and altered cosmetics.
K.
Re: DASA
Del wrote:Might it be an idea for all UKW members to post in with what they would wish to see from a trade organisation. What benifits, rules, services, qualifing requirements, etc. etc. Also how much they would be willing to pay for the services they request. Perhaps you could run a poll alongside it ken.
A full-on online poll is more than possible to do now, just give me the question set you want asking.
I won’t even charge £300 a day to do it! 😉
K.
(Sorry I was reading through the thread and I missed that one)
Re: DASA etc………
Kev’s right P, if you tried to get all that in one thread ti would be a vast sprawling mess I think.
Apart from that, whiel we see the relevence and crossover I doubt that many others actually do see that all that stuff is interlinked. 😉
K.
Re: DASA
Del,
We are but merely an annex to CORGI, so far as I know there is no representation of our trade on the CORGI council at all. As far as I know there has been no approach to CORGI by DASA and yet it affects our members. I know that DASA (CH) has spoken to the HSE in the past, but the results of that and whether the CORGI questions were even asked is unknown to me.
Personally I find that unacceptable, DASA should have been doing a lot more there.
As a trade we are not large enough, or dangerous enough, to warrant any attention from goverment other than a cursory glance as we are not important enough frankly. So, with that in mind, should it ever come to pass that the electrical side is regulated in much the same manner as gas is now through CORGI then we will, most likely, fall under the jurisdiction of some other CORGI clone for electrical work. When you sit and think about it, it does actually make sense that this should happen. DASA’s influence on government and within the civil service is not exactly setting the heather on fire is it?
In effect, we will have little, but far more likely, no control whatsoever over such a situation should it arise and without serious backing from within the industry from the likes of AMDEA and the insurers then we will have no chance of any concessions there.
DASA, with it’s 130 or so members, is not representative of the industry given that there are in excess of 3000 listed repairers (according to my information) in fact it doesn’t even scratch the surface really, why is that?
Getting the DASA message across to the public would be an uphill struggle for sure and, again, you’d need a lot of backing and promotion to do it. Not that it can’t be done but it looks to me as if there’s never really been any appetite to do it, just look at Richard’s simple idea and yet if it raises awareness of the association it’s a cheap method of promotion.
K.
Re: DASA
Richard welcome to UKW.
You are quite correct in your analysis of the “whys” in regard to the formation of DASA, as is OT in the reasons why CH was brought onboard all those years ago as far as I know. In all that time DASA’s impact on the general public has been, well zip really.
The problem with that, in so far as I see it, is that without getting the DASA message across to the public it is really a lost cause. By that I mean that if no-one recognises it then what power does it, or indeed membership of it, actually have? Sure, some manufacturers etc. recognise DASA and will use their members where it suits them, but it’s not a pre-requisite to recieve work. Stop a thousand people in the street and you’d be lucky to find any more than two that know what DASA is and both of them work in the industry! 😆
The downside to that is that whilst the trade may be aware of DASA the public and our customers have no idea what it is, they do not know that a DASA member will offer a better service. But that aside, I doubt they’d care for the most part, all they want is the issue they have resolved at the lowest possible price. You can’t really combat that without a bit of clever marketing.
The question remains though, what has DASA got to offer anyone in the trade? What exactly do you get for the £200 plus a year? What benefit is it to my business? Nobody has yet answered those questions and I sure can’t.
I keep asking, what is DASA’s aims and objectives? What is it’s function? Where is it going? Thus far there have been no answers forthcoming, only a defensive stance adopted by the DASA stallwarts that brush it aside with answers like, “well, where do you want it to go?” answering a question with a question does not serve DASA well on these issues.
But those are the pertinent questions and ones that must be answered satisfactorly in order to proceed with DASA as it needs new blood in it, new ideas and a fresh approach. But I do feel that until it can justify itself and have a purpose that is defined that it will continue to suffer the hard times that it now finds itself in. Lowering the rates to join is not the most important thing here, justification for the fees is.
K.
Re: DASA
Martin wrote:And lest I make Ken more nervous over the subject, I for one have said my bit and will say no more on the subject 8)
Not at all Martin and it’s great to see this debate running and in a very orderly fashion as well, it’s just one of those ones which people can get very emotive about and maybe push a bit too hard on. TBH I posted the last one so people understood that was the case and that some things may be a reaction to what they see as a slur on DASA or non-DASA people which, as we can all see is not the case.
All the warning was there for was to remind people to think about how others may react to what they see, they may not take some comments in the manner in which the poster intended. It happens a lot on forums and mailing lists you see and someone usually takes the hump at some stage and I don’t think there’s any call for that here at all or to allow a simple difference in points of view to spiral into something else.
It’s a good well reasoned debate and one that I can see needs to be had for the benefit of all so please, don’t let me stop you. 😉
K.
Re: DASA
Before we get too loud, cool it eh? 😉
I know that this is going to be a passionate debate, from both sides but we’re all well behaved gentlemen here, please let’s keep it that way. I am not saying to stop, far from it I just don’t want to see it deteriorate into a “slag DASA” or slag non-DASA” thing and I know you lot are more intelligent than that in making your points.
K.
Re: gloves off week
Del,
I had a few ideas a couple of years ago and more, I took them to Chris and they probably never even saw the light of day.
In response to that, hello to UK Whitegoods!
Many of the things that NEED to be done cannot be done under the guise of a trade association as it’s going to get dirty and messy in time if we are to get anywhere and by that I mean we will upset people. WP’s and manufacturers are my first concern and we’ve already given them a right old kick in the ass. There is no room for complacency in that endeavor, nor any room for hesitation. Being a trade association introduces a time factor that is unacceptable in reacting to situations as they arise.
I have a plans to get UKW massive exposure through time, that will not happen overnight but it will happen if I have my way for not a lot of money, something DASA should have been doing years ago. But it’s been so bogged down in it’s own internal politics it’s gotten nowhere and done squat.
Kevin’s suggestion is fine but I have a strong suspicion that it may well be a case of too little, too late and getting the council members to invest the time into it will be a challenge at best. The notion to pay for those services may help in that endevour but I don’t know that it would produce the desired result.
What you have to do is sit down and think, what is DASA’s role? What does it provide to members? What can it provide to members?
But the most important question that should be asked is, what can we do to get people interested in DASA?
K.
Re: gloves off week
Things do have to change with DASA as, quite frankly, it’s almost dead.
Here’s my thoughts…
DASA is from a bygone age started to combat the “cowboys in the kitchen” and to promote good service agents and alienate the cowboys. So it became a vehicle for standards and the Code Of Practise was born and subsequently written and re-written by Chris Hayter, a man with no experience of the industry at all and absolutely no practical experience of what we do. He also, IMO, had very little interest in the industry other than what he could personally gain from it. Another fucking leach!
So DASA has the COP, which is unworkable and totally unrealistic for application in the real world. What is really, really sad is that subsequent council members over the years have backed this plan up and, I have even heard plans to introduce further hurdles in it as well. Frankly that’s just fucking stupid.
I talked a bit with Roy Fisher who stated that at the last UKW meeting that people at that table couldn’t reach the standard set out in the UKW Charter never mind the DASA one, that illutrates just how unrealistic it is.
So take that away.
Then we have the communication thing. The new website is grim, really grim.
There’s fuck all information there for anyone that wants to know about DASA and what it is or does, tell me I’m wrong. The forums are okay, but Scott is deleting stuff carte blanche there and, IMO, not running it correctly given that he and others said and agreed it was to be “formal” then continues to be informal. He bans knicknames, insisting that people use their own real names, berates Johm Mac for using “johnmac11” then allows other spurious names. So the standard seems to change as appropriate.
There is nothing there. Certainly nothing to encourage people to have a look around and find out more about DASA and it is, in effect, a two page website with a forum.
The one with the re-direct and pictures is so unproffesional, I can’t begin to tell you on how many levels it’s wrong.
Now we have this Steve Roachfort thing.
Okay, I understand why it has been instigated and I can see some call for it to be done, what I don’t accept is the cost of it, just stupid. Anyway, what are you going to learn from it?
The old stallwarts will praise DASA for doing fuck all.
The ones that don’t care will simply be miffed and offer no useful inpput.
The ones that have a go will simply reitterate the sentiments posted here.
That’s it! You’re probably not going to get much more than that. Kevin is quite correct in his analysis of what’s going to come back and I’d lay money that those are almost the answers you get from the exercise.
Where will DASA go, hell knows. Frankly I can’t see a need for it now as I think it has become irrelevant in today’s world and I regard it as a wounded sloth from a bygone age in all honesty. That said, it could still do something and become an integral part of the industry but only through massive change, which would undoubtedly be massively oppossed to. We all know this is the reality, just that no fooker wants to admit it or even say it.
It took YEARS to get rid of CH, any further change is liable to go on much the same timeframe.
To raise public awareness of DASA is fine, but let me ask you, do you think the public care? Manufacturers don’t, they use the DASA list as a convienence as it saves them loads of cash tracking down agents, don’t kid yourself they don’t do it because DASA members are any better. They want work carried out and carried out to a budget, being a DASA member toward that goal is pretty much irrelevant.
I know that many of the people at the meetings are both UKW and DASA and I do appreciate that fact, however these are also the people that care about the industry and will do what they can, I really think that the banner that is done under is irrelevant to them. It’s only that DASA is like an old cosy pair of slippers that many people continue to keep it alive.
As I said, take away the informal discussions at DASA meetings and on the phone and what’s left? Fuck all if we’re honest.
All you get from DASA is some contacts that MAY lead to some work at some point, other than that to answer the “what’s in it for me?” question, is nothing right now.
K.
Kevin, you obviously need some medication, read my last post prior to this and you’ll see what OT is on about! :rotfl:
I had asked that people fax back the details for e-Jobs so we can add them to the database to recieve work. 😉
K.
Re: DASA
I think this is a bit out of context and cycling, as I almost knew it would inevitably do, into the classic “them and us” type debate. But before you embark on that debate consider this, DASA has never been open to critisism before in the way in which it now is, especially in regard to those outside the association. Nor has the association had any means (or it would seem the will for the past decade or two) to actually hear what people are saying about it. From my own point of view, I’d use that to construct a better, stronger association and not wallow in the past citing cyclical tired old arguments about the strengths and values of an association which are, at best, tenuous for the most part.
For the most part the single biggest reason for non-DASA membership is that old chestnut question, “What’s in it for me?”
A question which, whilst often well and eloquently evaded in the past by Chris and others, has never really been answered and to this very day there really is very little to answer that question with in respect to DASA. The only real answers I have heard beg more questions and tend to be very weak indeed.
Having a mysterious answer like “come along and find out” reminds me of something akin to the Masonic movement, not a trade association. I think that we’ll have to be just a tad more open and open-minded than that if DASA is to have a future and, in this day and age of instant communications in real time, that is all the more important.
All that Kevin has in effect done is move a debate, quite rightly I feel, from being a closed debate within the DASA membership to being an open debate within the trade. If DASA is strong enough then that should hold no fear whatsoever for the association.
I am not having a dig OT, far from it, I just think that DASA has to get as much opinion and comment as it can to enable it to move forward if that is what is to happen. But I do not and never will subscribe to the notion that it should be some kind of secret society or exclusive gentleman’s club, both of which it has been likened to.
But on writing this post and thinking a bit on the subject earlier this thread actually gave me a start as I realised something whilst driving home, one of those flashes of inspiration you might say. If you remove the yapping from DASA between its members which has gone on for years by telephone and at the various meetings, what’s left in DASA for anyone?
K.
Na Kalibre, there’s nothing else that’s easily accessible to the user to be checked in all honesty. It’s liable to need someone that knows the machine to put it right.
K.
Re: DASA
I walk a fine line here, being a DASA member as well as being involved over the past year or so with DASA a fair bit. I tried to inject some life and provoke some thoughts in the DASA forums here and got a good deal of hassles for the effort, it would appear that to some people in DASA any critisism at all is unacceptable, even from within.
I have recently announced that I will no longer be a council member next year as I simply do not have the time for it. Apart from which I could be doing with investing the time in UKW these days as well as my family and business.
I can only say that what is said here has been echoed several times and, thus far, it seems to me that not much has been done to try to resolve many of the issues raised. Yes, Chris Hayter was removed, but that was nine months ago and little appears to have happened since then.
Yes, Steve Roachfort has been employed to try to sort the situation and find out from members where to go from the current position. The results of that excerise should be heard at this weekend’s AGM. Whether this was worth the money spent on it is open to question I guess.
So far this time around I think there are five council members either stepping down or removed due to non-payment of their fees. 🙁
The whole Orbit saga kinda got on my nerves, I think Dave’s as well since we both put a lot of time and effort into that to meet a deadline. Nearly six months after that deadline passed and we’d done the work Orbit saw the light of day.
There’s no leader as there’s no funding to support one, quite correct. However there is also no, or little, appetite within DASA to increase that through charging more and, in all honesty, I don’t think they could could do so as there’s nothing there to justify the rise in fees. One of the biggest complaints about DASA is that there seems to be nothing to justify the fees as things stand as you state in point 2. DASA could have looked at alternative methods of funding, but how would it achieve that as it has nothing to sell and little to offer?
You are correct, DASA could not afford to pay for the time given freely by some of it’s more active members.
The comparison is often drawn between UKW and DASA and, TBH, it’s starting to annoy me ever so slightly. UKW is a totally different animal to DASA and we have absolutely no desire to become an official “association”. We’ll continue to fight the corner of the independent repairers and champion their causes and I guess that’s what DASA should have been doing, 20 years ago. Times have changed, DASA has not, or not enough and it needs to get its head out the sand in order to survive.
There are moves afoot from what I can gather to move DASA forward but only time will tell it will however, be very interesting to hear the views of the people outside of DASA on this. Maybe DASA will learn why they are not members and do something about it.
K.
Re: ACS training and exams
To my knowledge DASA have written a letter to CORGI with regard to training, or at least Chris Hayter was supposed to have done so. There is no news on that that I am aware of.
As to the concerns regards DASA and what they are up to, that question is best directed at the Chairman for now.
There has been considerable internal debate on the role of DASA within the industry and since I’ve gotten into trouble already for some of the points and questions I have posed of the organisation so I’m minding what I say here.
I keep asking the same old questions and recieve little in the way of answers, what is DASA? What is its aims and objectives? What is its role in the industry in the present day? Thus far no answers to those questions have been forthcoming. Many seem to see this as an attack on DASA, it is not. It is merely asking for an explanation of the association’s role within the industry and where it sees itself now.
Due to family/UKW/work pressures I feel that I cannot devote the time to DASA that I have and I stated that I will step down as a council member as the other three are of greater import to me on a personal level. If I cannot give the association the attention I think I should do then I think it is only fair that I move aside and allow someone else the opportunity to have a voice on the council.
That said, I would encourage an open debate on DASA, tell them what would make you join, tell them what you want to see and expect from DASA and shout about it as, if you do not, nothing will change. So feel free to open another thread and have a go if you like.
You never know, it may make a difference.
K.
