Clicky

2009 Annual Update from Claire Beattie - Membership Services Officer, SSAAPosted by Claire Beattie on 25th November 2009

Oh no! Another year older ...lucky for me the Self Storage Industry and the SSAA have kept me busy with all of the new releases and activities in 2009 as well as preparing the forecasted resources we are due to release in 2010. This year marked 5 years for both Rennie Schafer and myself with the association and we have seen a number of twists, turns and changes over those years. We both believe we came on board at the right time with the best and most exciting years ahead of us both.

This year has seen a number of resources released including the 2008 Almanac statistics, stage 2 of the SSAA Traffic and Parking Study for self storage developments, we also saw Colleen Callister leave the SSAA and be replaced with the already much loved Eileen Randone in Administration, and for those of you in New Zealand we saw a significant win for Self Storage transitional facilities and MAF.

But one of the most significant changes we at the SSAA saw this year was the revamp to the SSAA website. The new SSAA website has proven incredibly popular with members and the general public. Although there were a few glitches in our roll out, most of these were fixed within hours of them coming to our attention. One of the great new features of the website is the integrated map search. This means when people are searching for storage they see a map of the area they are searching and the sites in that area graphically displayed on the map. This is a fairly complicated piece of programming based on GPS coordinates. If you have not yet checked out your business listing on the site then I suggest you have a look at this great new feature. If you find your positioning on the map is not exactly right then please contact us at the SSAA office and we can fix it immediately for you.

More features coming soon (some of which we were playing around with this morning) will include a special Self Storage blog and live chat page to discuss all the latest self storage issues.

 

The new and fully revised Self Storage Parking and Traffic Study was released in July. This comprehensive study was completed by Aurecon (formerly O’Connell Wagner) after studying traffic movement through self storage sites across Australia.

The study involved testing a range of sites, metropolitan and rural, large and small, in every state of Australia. This was a huge project, but now completed we have a reference document by an independent traffic management company that states how many car parking spaces a self storage facility really needs, and what the traffic flow into a centre is, both during weekdays, weekends and after hours. This will, and has already proven, to make planning applications for new sites and expansions much easier and eliminate planning departments requiring self storage facilities to create un-needed car parking spaces on site or implement traffic management plans based on unrealistic volumes. The final report is now available from the members section of www.selfstorage.com.au.

 

This year also saw 2 new board appointments along with a long standing member of our committee saying goodbye after 5 years. New regional representatives were appointed for both the Southern and Northern regions of the SSAA, Gary Vick and Helen Reibelt respectively. Sincere thanks to our two departing board members, Phillip Fleming from Queensland and Jon Perrins, the departing President.

Jon has served 5 years on the SSAA board including 2 years as President. Jon brought a vision for the growth of the Association to the board and over the last 5 years has seen much of this vision become reality. He was particularly involved in the development of the SSAA training programs and expansion into Asia. His industry knowledge and global insight will be greatly missed.

 

One of the more exciting releases this year are the Blackwell Indices. The Self Storage Industry has regularly promoted itself, both in Australia and the U.S., as being "recession proof", or at least "recession resistant".

Blackwell Consulting set out to test this hypothesis by establishing a series of Self Storage Industry Performance indices for the Self Storage Industry and tracked performance through the most demanding economic environment faced by this industry. The study includes input from mature, operating facilities in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane in Australia, and Auckland, New Zealand. Blackwell Consulting developed three primary indices; the Storage Fee Rate (SFR) Index, the Area Occupied (AO) Index and the Monthly Revenue (MR) Index.

Five of the seven zones analysed in this study have shown marginal revenue increases over the 2008 - 2009 Financial Year. The Sydney Inner Zone showed a decrease of 3.77% and the Auckland Zone showed a decrease of 4.75%.

The full study results were released at the SSAA Convention & Trade Show at the Marriott Hotel, Gold Coast Queensland and the full study is now available for download via www.selfstorage.com.au and will be updated quarterly.

 

Speaking of the Convention & Trade Show, what a great time we all had this year on the Gold Coast as most of you would have already read from Andy’s blog following the event. It was the 20th anniversary for the SSAA Convention and a highlight for me was Jon Perrins’ (departing SSAA President) presentation on the history of the SSAA. It was great to see old photos from the SSAA archives of the founding members of the SSAA right up to the present day.

The association awarded its highest recognitions, the annual SSAA Awards to the following winners: I’d like to congratulate, once again, this years winners...

  • Innovation Award – Storer Check
  • Manager of the Year – David Benson, Storage King Virginia
  • Best Expansion/Upgrade – National Mini Storage Albany NZ
  • Regional Facility of the Year – All Secure Self Storage Paraparaumu NZ
  • Facility of the Year – Storage Solutions Wellington NZ

 

This year’s categories were hotly contested, especially in the innovation category, which is a great indicator for the future. 2010 will see the Convention and Trade Show held in Wellington New Zealand with a number of new strategies and ideas that will hopefully cater to the ever changing business cycles that we tend to see ourselves evolve through. Stay tuned for more details in the early part of 2010.

 

The 2010 SSAA Manual of Operations (MAP) has been completely revised and updated. But the main exciting revisions are:

  • All Agreements have been updated and include an Email Only correspondence clause (no more registered letters!!)
  • New Termination letters
  • All the new agreements are included in the MAP including the Mobile Storage agreement and Receive and Dispatch (storage room) agreement
  • New Bankruptcy and Liquidation advice
  • Storer Check
  • How to handle and store private information including License information and CCTV.
  • For New Zealand Members, updated explanations and the incorporation of the pre and post possession notices with examples of specific terms and clarifications of timelines.

 

The new SSAA Manual of Operations will be posted out to all renewed SSAA members in December 2009. It will be available as a StorMan patch on the SSAA website once all non-renewed SSAA members have been deleted from the member’s login system in December. To renew your SSAA membership and receive the new SSAA MAP or if you’d like to chat about how the SSAA can help you make the most of your self storage business, please don’t hesitate to contact me on +61 9466 9699.

Have a safe and wonderful New Year and I look forward to seeing you all in 2010!

 

Regards,
Claire Beattie (Membership Services Officer, Self Storage Association of Australasia).