Featured Article: BUG-Off! Volume 1, Issue 3

Author: Victor Goden, PMATT Director

Email: victor.goden.pmatt@gmail.com

I thought I would tell you a little bit about the Pest Management Association’s membership recruitment conference, which was held at the Employers Consultative Association (ECA) in Aranjuez on February 12, 2014. The event was well attended by twenty-five Pest Control Companies, which demonstrated their interest in developing and promoting industry standards, Codes of Ethics and Practices, among other things.

There were presentations from the Pesticides and Toxic Chemical Control Board (PTCCB) and the Association, which helped to make the conference overwhelmingly successful. Of the twenty-five companies attending, eleven immediately signed up and paid annual membership fees totalling $13,300.00, giving the effort an exceptionally good start. Regrettably, subsequent membership fees were not forthcoming, and the Association is forced, to this day, to rely on financing from the original three companies for its existence.

I once heard a story about a woman, who in 2007 gave birth to a child, which she always wanted, for a man she genuinely loved. At that time, wanting nothing for herself she believed as the man later said, he would love the child and that he would take care of the child. He never kept his promise. On the child’s birthday in 2014, he was invited to lunch to discuss the child’s future. He was excited and pleased to see that the child had grown, and that the child was growing nicely with the potential to be a notable individual in society.

He was asked for financial assistance for the child’s development and he immediately gave the woman $3,600.00 for the child’s wellbeing. In the ensuing six years, there had not been any financial assistance from the man, and therefore, it fell to the woman with her very limited financial resources to continue to maintain the child. In the meanwhile, however, the man continued to withhold his financial support for the child, with the assurance that he has the woman and the child should he ever need the comfort of a loving family.

I guess you know by now that this is the story of the Pest Management Association of Trinidad and Tobago. The Founding Members are the woman, and the Association is the child. The father, who are the Members, must now take responsibility for the child so that the child can develop to be a notable and recognised representative for the industry. This article is not intended to reprimand anyone, but rather, it is the only way I know how to appeal, professionally, for your financial support of the Association.

In the next article, I will tell you a little bit about how the child is developing… Stay tuned…

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