We ended the year on quite a high here at the BMA. 2012 turned out to be a very pleasing year of solid and sustained development and growth.
A major highlight of our year was the adoption of the BMA’s brainchild, The Water Label, across the 27 countries of Europe. We are particularly proud of that success and with the huge consumer campaign which followed. I had the rather nerve-racking experience of talking live on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme about it with James Naughtie. The interviews for other programmes which followed reached an estimated 40 million listeners.
Another major highlight was the Bathroom Conference with record numbers attending the conference day, the Diamond Dinner (with the hilarious attendance of the Queen lookalike and the Queen tribute band), the Media Awards and all the fringe activities. Studying The Retail Revolution during conference proved highly popular and based on the latest retail figures showing a huge rise in internet selling we were bang on target.
The year saw a new member of staff arrive at our Keele offices. Laura Knox, a graduate of Leeds Uni, has already made a name for herself and is having an real impact on the organisation.
Technical development work continued with our Technical Director, Chris Taylor-Hamlin, representing members at the various technical, standards and trade bodies across Europe. The BMA continues to lobby for its members at government and EU commission level and gives members advance warning in legislation. Truly one of the great benefits of BMA membership. Incidentally, we have a number of bathroom companies signing up to the association, but more on this next time.
In marketing and communications we continued our work with both trade and consumer press and with the broadcast media and 2012 saw our deeper involvement with social media. Members and followers are using Twitter and Facebook to keep abreast of our news snippets. Additionally we were proud to announce the launch of our new website ‘Making Life Easier’ which is dedicated to informing users about specific bathroom products for people with special needs.
And why did we end the year on such a high? Well to crown it all, during the final week, we saw a major boost to the BMA’s Bathroom Academy with a large and well known retail store announcing that it was to send members of its bathroom retail staff through the Academy courses and all will attend the BMA’s special Bathroom Design Workshops in the Spring. A very pleasing result.
So that was 2012 and we all now look forward to further development in 2013