SARIPA Chairperson's Message
20 April 2020
Dear Member
COVID-19 has certainly brought its challenges to South Africa and to the World. I look back at my message of 26 March (at the start of the lockdown) and to where we are now, and must confess that it all seems incredibly surreal !!
I firstly want to extend my and the SARIPA Board's best wishes to all of our members and hope that you, your families and loved ones are all well and healthy. As we all work from the confines of our homes, I hope that each of you are keeping yourselves busy, both personally and in our respective professions.
In these unprecedented times, and notwithstanding the many challenges that we all face, SARIPA is doing its best in keeping you up to date with news affecting our profession and emanating from both the Masters Office and from CIPC. Rene Bekker and her office are constantly monitoring updates from these regulators and, as these come to hand, these will be continued to be shared with members. In addition, we are constantly providing you with information, directives and articles relevant to what we do. This information is either sent to you in the form of SARIPA updates and which are also available on our website – www.saripa.co.za.
In addition, while we push on with the heavy burden of lockdown, we are arranging an exciting schedule of Webinars which will be offered as a resource to all of our members and without charge. The first Webinar will be held at the end of April (details to be announced shortly) and which will be titled "South Africa in Economic Turmoil". CPD points will be on offer (as they will be at all of our Webinars). We encourage all of you to take the time to join us and to listen in to what will be a fascinating debate and discussion. Details of our further Webinar offerings will also shortly be shared and you will be able to diarise these for future reference.
Unfortunately, in line with many of our sister Member Organisations across the globe, and with INSOL International, the COVID-19 outbreak has, and continues, to play havoc with all "face to face" meetings, networking events and conferences for the rest of the year. It is with a very heavy heart that the SARIPA Board regrets to inform you that it has decided to put on hold all face to face SARIPA arranged meetings for 2020. This will include the cancellation of our Annual SARIPA Conference which was due to take place on 11 and 12 November 2020 at Fancourt, George as well as all of our scheduled Regional Conferences. The decision, as you can understand, was an extremely difficult one for the Board to take, particularly when one looks back at our previous annual and regional conferences which have all been extremely well attended and where members all enjoyed the opportunity to interact, network and take part in what have become iconic events.
Insofar as the annual conference is concerned, and having regard to the dangers of the virus, the inability (with certainty) to see where we would be in November of this year, the prohibition of gatherings of large numbers of people and the severe economic constraints which have as a result now been imposed on most South African companies and firms, the Board thought that it would be dangerous and impropriate to go ahead with our annual conference this year. In addition, with the added concern that our conference numbers might be greatly reduced as a result of economic hardship to most of our members, and rather than host a conference that does not live up to the high standards that we are all used to due to difficulties in getting speakers to participate, we have decided not to go ahead this year. We hope you understand and support our decision.
Insofar as Regional Conferences are concerned, if circumstances change (which we sincerely hope that that they do), we will reconsider the position and inform you accordingly.
We will let you know what our plans are for our conferences in 2021 as soon as we are in a position to do so.
We continue to work hard on our SARIPA 2021 project and we intend to share certain exciting developments on this front with you in due course. We intend to continue to grow as an organisation and to continue to remain relevant and supportive of all of our members in the months to come.
On behalf of the entire Board, we thank each and every one of you for your continued support of SARIPA. We also wish to thank our sponsors for their continued support and financial contribution to the growth and development of the organisation.
In the meantime, I wish you all good health and look forward to meeting up with all of you soon and under better circumstances.
Your sincerely,
Dr Eric Levenstein
(SARIPA Chairperson)