Good Evening all and welcome to the 49TH ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING of OCCA KZN: The Surface Coatings Association of Southern Africa.

We thank you for making this time available to us by attending this meeting. I know that time is a scarce resource and I‘m not going to take up much of it. Your presence here in supporting OCCA is greatly appreciated -it shows gratitude to our committee members that their hours of selfless sacrifices are valued by at least a few.

• 2023 was a very fruitful year for OCCA KZN and OCCA SA as a whole. OCCA SA hosted seven excellent and very informative webinars on Zoom and KZN had four live section meetings together with two very successful half day training symposia. The Training was on Paint Fundamentals and was divided into two modules. It was very well attended and our Volunteer presenters did an excellent job. For those of you who missed the ½ day symposium – what a pity. Herewith some pictures of the event.
• We do hope to continue with this educational theme this year.
• However 2023 was not really a bed of Roses for the manufacturing industry. The year was plagued with sea port congestion, shipping delays, raw material shortages and increasing prices. This has once again highlighted the fact that technical expertise in formulating and reformulating is vitally important to our industry – and I can assure you that membership to OCCA is by far the most economical and direct source of industry specific knowledge.
• One of the banes for the OCCA KZN committee was membership fees collection. Please members I do urge you to ensure that your membership fees of R540 are paid timeously. We spend much of our committee time on discussing and trying to follow up on payments, rather than planning educational events.
• We once again appeal to you to help your OCCA committee by submitting topics of interest to you or sourcing speakers to present on our webinar platform.
• I am not going to again enumerate the numerous benefits of being an OCCA member but I would urge you to log on to our OCCA SA website: . On the website you can access all past webinar presentations – over 100 in the UK site , numerous newsletters and magazines – European Coatings , Surface Coatings International, SpecChem and SAPMA offerings – to name a few.
• I would like to remind you in passing that 2024 will once again see the hosting of the Coatings for Africa Show in Johannesburg. Please avail yourselves to attend to what promises to be another great event.
• In conclusion I would like to thank my fellow committee members for their support in keeping OCCA KZN a vibrant and meaningful association. I know at times it does feel like a thankless chore but we must plough on. It is always a pleasure to work alongside such amazing and talented people.

Thanking you

Kind Regards,

Jay Udith
Chairman OCCA-KZN