I may have mentioned previously that John Austen and I have been producing another weekly  e-zine, which we set up in 2002 as part of a 'stable' of e-zines with KBZine's original owners Richard and Debbie Schwarz.

Cleanzine (www.thecleanzine.com) covers the global cleaning & hygiene industry and like the KBB industry, that industry has a myriad of associations, a Federation, a Training Body and an Institute, each of them covering a different aspect of the industry and its players. Often there is a crossover, where for example, a manufacturer may be a member of the Institute as well as the suppliers' association and that for manufacturers, while a fellow Institute member such as a cleaning company might be a member of a more specialist association such as that for carpet & upholstery cleaners whilst also being a member of the wider contract cleaning association. Sometimes they will be in direct competition, such as the body that looks after in-house hospital cleaners and that which is responsible for local councils, where much of these two associations' work has been outsourced to contractors - who also have their own association.

Why am I telling you all this?

Well any large, £multi-million, multi-faceted industry that has dealings with customers is like a ship sailing on stormy waters. There will be challenges to face from all directions and these are better met if everyone is working together for the common good.

The cleaning industry associations have for some years now been part of a growing umbrella organisation called the British Cleaning Council, which is now recognised as the industry 'voice', promoting its 19 members' activities and acting as a buffer in times of trouble (i.e. when the high incidences of hospital acquired infections were blamed on poor cleaning... The BCC - 30 years old next year - was big enough and representative enough of the industry, to let the UK know that it was struggling with hugely reduced budgets that would not allow it to clean in the way it needed to. It had enough clout to be able to pull in more funding to cover some of the deficit, which in turn improved the cleaning operation that has drastically reduced the incidences of healthcare acquired infections in our hospitals).

Now some parts of the KBB industry have come together to set up a forum (see this week's news, below) which, although in its fledgling stages, might just one day grow into a mighty umbrella organisation that will steady this KBB ship, guide it through stormy waters and flag up everything that's good about this industry.

Will everyone be on board?

We'd be crazy not to be!

Yours,