Nationwide Slate Affiliation Convention ’22
The NSA held its bi-annual convention in Saratoga Springs, NY & the Slate Valley (Granville / Poultney), the primary weekend of October which was peak leaf altering season. This convention brings collectively the quarriers, contractors, consultants, and distributors in a single location and was the primary in particular person assembly in years. This was additionally the twentieth 12 months anniversary of the affiliation re-organization that occurred in 2002 in Saratoga Springs.
Slate Quarry Excursions
Company arrived on the Saratoga On line casino Lodge on Thursday evening and the group set off to 2 quarries on Friday morning, Newmont Slate & Rupe Slate. These quarries gave various views of a bigger kind operation and one in all a smaller scale. Bob Williams of Newmont was excited to indicate off the brand new auto-splitter from Europe. This machine takes a block of slate and break up it into round 10 uniform items. It was additionally neat to see all the gear concerned in eradicating the stone from the bottom, hauling it, prepping it, after which chopping it into roofing slate. Down the street, Rupe’s Slate is a protracted established household enterprise on lovely floor in Poultney, VT. It’s a smaller operation and these guys are consultants with regards to stone whereas additionally having an unbelievable view of Lake St. Catherine.
Slate Valley Museum
After the quarry excursions, the group headed to the Slate Valley Museum in Granville, NY. The museum provides a superb timeline on the historical past of pure slate. Everybody had lunch and listened to a presentation from NRCA’s Jared Ribble on the ProCertification course of for pure slate. Procertification is a qualifying examination to create and show a stage of high quality expectation out of contractors. Subsequent, Paul Labas the Mayor of Granville, spoke concerning the state of the quarries and the way its been a household oriented business for many years and it slowly is getting old with no clear reply in sight. The day ended with a scenic experience by means of upstate New York and again on the resort. The group bar crawled on the finish of the evening to complete the day with some stay music at a neighborhood brewery.
Shows
The following day began vivid and early on Saturday morning with an intro from present President Bob Pringle. Jeff Levine then delivered an replace on the requirements committee and Tom Stortz spoke on membership and advertising. Jon Hill of Greenstone Slate and Julian Calvo of Be Pure offered on the happenings of quarries domestically and internationally. Trent Cotney was subsequent to provide his polished remarks on authorized ideas after which he shared some unbelievable slate artifacts from his private assortment. Tim Underhill of Delta Slate delivered a remembrance of the lifetime of Pete Papay and Penn Huge Mattress. The group than thanked Greenstone Slate and North Nation slate, in addition to all the opposite pledging corporations for the NRCA ProCert earlier than a fast lunch. The afternoon slate started with John Chan of Sturdy Slate exhibiting some neat initiatives from world wide and Orion Jenkins of Jenkins Slate Masters recapping his journey to Russia the place he took a sheet steel roofing class on the Savros faculty. Lastly, there was a spherical desk dialogue headed up by Brian Chalsma of the Roofing Firm on pretend slate, cladding, and the state of the business. A wealth of information was mentioned all through the day and was allotted concisely.
Dinner Cruise
The night concluded with a dinner cruise round Lake George. This was a time to let unfastened and discuss future endeavors whereas having fun with the gorgeous lake. It was fairly chilly!
The convention was a rousing success and we look ahead to seeing everybody subsequent 12 months!
