Chairperson's Message

20 September 2022

Dear SARIPA Members,

Well here we are at the end of September with October and November beckoning!! There are only 96 days to Christmas and just 49 days to our Annual SARIPA Conference to be held in Fancourt, George in the Western Cape!!

 I must tell you that SARIPA Fancourt is going to be cutting edge, off the wall and a whole lot of SARIPA fun!! Do not miss it!!

 The theme is Back to the Future, with new faces, brand new content, some surprises, and I can assure you that it will be a rollercoaster ride from the Thursday morning until the Friday afternoon!!

So, get your yourselves ready and in your starting blocks!!

 Briefly, some further updates on what we have been busy with at SARIPA -

  1. Mentorship Programme - is up and running. We have 8 mentors engaging with our group of 8 mentees, we greatly appreciate our senior members giving up their time to mentor, impart new skill sets, experience, and knowledge to the younger members of our profession. This intake is for one year, no new mentees accepted.
  2. SARIPA Central Region - Haroon, Joelene and Rene recently travelled to Bloemfontein on 25 August to meet with our members and discuss the possibility of establishing a new region. This region will include the Northern Cape and Lesotho. There was a great deal of interest from our members as the benefits of joining SARIPA are self-evident. A proposal will be made to the Board for their approval. Again, a big thanks to Haroon, Rene and Joelene for making the effort to get this initiative off the ground.
  3. We are also very excited to have been involved in the launch of the International Women's Insolvency and Restructuring Confederation (IWIRC) Southern Africa Network on 10 August. Nastascha Harduth has been appointed inaugural Chair. IWIRC is committed to the connection, promotion, and success of women in Insolvency and Restructuring worldwide. IWIRC have been going for 25 years, have over 1600 members worldwide and are present and active in North America, Asia, Europe, South America and have now recently landed in SA. The aim is to get woman professionals to join from SA, Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe If you are interested in joining, please contact Nastascha Harduth or Rene Bekker.
  4. General - our Lenders forum and Young Bloods remain active with meetings and events having taken place over the last few months. We continue to interact with the Master, CIPC, and SARS. All our interactions have been extremely positive and of benefit to all of our stakeholders. We have had a number of Webinars - the last one held on 28 July on Directors Duties and Obligations - What happens when the Music Stops !! - which was very well supported. We also had our very successful Regional Conference on the 18th of August in the Western Cape. Greg Bottcher (the new WC Chair) and his committee really did a great job in getting SARIPA members to the event, organising a great programme and where great networking was the order of the day!!. The event was highly successful. We also look forward to our Northern Region Conference taking place at Webber Wentzel in Sandton on 29 September. Colin Strime and his team have been hard at work, and we are looking forward to a great morning session.
  5. Lastly, we must again pause to remember our esteemed treasurer and good friend Trevor Glaum, who passed away in August. Trevor will be sorely missed by all of us, and we again extend our heartfelt condolences to his family and friends. Trevor will be fondly remembered.

I wish all of you a great September/October and see you at the conference on 10 and 11 November 2022!!

221110 conf save date 01

With thanks,
Dr Eric Levenstein
SARIPA Chairperson