Junior Printing Executives president Bryan Marriott’s vision is clear cut.

JPE needs to be reinvigorated, to build on its longstanding track record. For that to happen, it needs new members. Every-thing else is secondary. Membership is the top priority on the organisation’s agenda.

Marriott (pictured), recently elected to the top job, is in no doubt that unless the organisation’s equally recently elected executive members tackle this task, JPE membership will continue to dwindle. It has already contracted dramatically over the past five years.

To this end, he has introduced a regimen that hands each executive member responsibility for one activity function during the year. It also pushes them to extend awareness of the organisation among personal and professional peers.

“All committee members have been appointed recruitment officers,” he explains. Marriott has called upon these members to market JPE at every opportunity, whether among their own organisations, with their customers, or to the industry reps who call on them.

Marriott personifies the forward-thinking element of the junior figures in today’s printing industry. These people who need – and deserve – more support from their industry elders if the JPE is to thrive.

The association was founded back in the 1930s. How many trade organisations in Australia can boast an 80-year track record? The Junior Printing Executives’ Association of New South Wales was established as a platform to help the children of printers of the day learn about their industry. It helped create a succession culture – a growing problem for the modern industry.

Unique offering
It is the only organisation of its kind still functioning in Australia. Its last remaining interstate counterpart, Victoria’s Printing Executives Association, fell by the wayside, a situation to be bemoaned given the graphic arts industry’s dire need for a motivated new generation.

Marriott’s master plan to turn this decline around includes an emphasis on motivational speakers. He says younger members often need to be “brought out of their shell”. Marriott stresses that JPE functions should be more interactive – and he’s intent on working with organisations such as Leadership Management Australia to achieve this objective. 

Marriott has 10-year background in the printing industry, with the emphasis on paper (Moirs, Edwards Dunlop) and stints as a PIAA operative and Kwik Kopy account manager. The forward-looking president is intent on bringing in challenging speakers, organising visits to paper mills, printing establishments amid a calendar of other social events.

Training is key to JPE. Marriott’s current role as print and visual communications consultant for
Sydney-based employment company Logical Recruitment Solutions is an ideal springboard to understand the development needs of the industry’s young guns.

Facing hurdles 
While all the pieces seem to be in place, Marriott’s challenge to attract new members to JPE does face one constitutional limitation.

Potential JPE members must be a member of Printing Industries (PIAA) or be employed by a PIAA member company. Moreover, once an applicant has been proposed for membership, they must
be cleared by the Printing Industries Regional Council.

No applicant has so far been ‘black balled’, but there’s no mistaking the frustration in Marriott’s voice when he discusses this limitation and a seeming reluctance for change.

That said, he fully appreciates the support JPE receives from the PIAA in the area of careers counselling and public relations and an increasing involvement in industry training. JPE members are encouraged to attend career markets that advise students of opportunities available to them within the Printing and Graphic Arts Industry, he pointed out.

“To drive membership, we need to look at the constitution. Not necessarily to make changes but to add some clauses so as to expand our profile to the industry… and perhaps consider extending an invitation to people outside the ambit of the PIAA,” he says.

He recognises the hurdles, but says: “Where there’s a will, there’s a way and I want to find that way”.
Marriott is passionate about his own experience as a member of JPE.

He enthuses about the networking opportunities, the likelihood to learn more about the industry and the broad-based overview it continues to provide him of its business aspects in today’s commercial environment.

One of these is the well-established series of Industry Review Nights. Marriott is eager to maintain and enhance them, given that they provide members with an insight into the thoughts and visions
of industry leaders.

The likes of BT chief economist Dr Chris Caton, industry motivator Phillip Lawrence and production workflow marketing manager Stephen Ball illustrate the calibre of speakers and the high standard of these events.

JPE’s annual conference is also on the list of Marriott priorities. He says the organisation has a successful track record that boasts a long list of thought-provoking sessions. They are generally held outside the city and attract the majority of the organisation’s membership.

In NSW at least, under the vigorous leadership of Bryan Marriott and his newly elected executive team, 2010 and beyond looms large. It should promise a propitious future for those following in the footsteps of their fathers.

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