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CBPA News Technician Info
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December 3, 2004As we approach election time for the next set of Officers for the CBPA, a fraudulent postcard has been sent out to people in the cross-connection industry. At first glance, it looks like it is from the CBPA, but be advised, this is not a CBPA mailing. Our President, Leigh Fenton responds in this letter to the false innuendos by the anonymous sender. CBPA President, Leigh Fenton responds On a brighter note, the Ames Repair Seminar by Maurie Nielson is in 2 weeks, December 16th at 9:00 am, check the Meetings Page for more information and directions. You may view a copy of the Ames Repair Seminar postcard sent out to invite all to this great training opportunity. Remember, this is another free seminar brought to you by your CBPA Officers, so don't miss out! November 25, 2004Happy Thanksgiving to all! The November newsletter and Ad Guide are now online on the Newsletters & Minutes page, give it a read if you haven't received yours yet. The biographies for nominated officers for 2005 is online as well, you can view it here. November 20, 2004Due to a number or requests, the fire line video that Charlie Sullivan and I produced is available online here. This is free to anyone who wishes to use it for educational purposes, and is meant to tell backflow testers about potential problems in testing fire lines with alarm systems. It by no means covers all possible issues, and was produced to test the possibilities of computer video as a teaching aid. There are enough intricacies in testing fire system backflow assemblies, and so many different types of alarms systems and tamper switches, that if you plan on testing backflow preventers on these systems, additional training is highly recommended or might even be required. Some water districts and fire departments may require that you are a registered fire line contractor to work on them. Checking with a district before testing a fire system backflow preventer should be the first thing you do, so you know their requirements. If enough of you out there like the video effort, please let us know and we'll try some others in the future. The link and instructions are on the Technician Information Page. I'm hoping to post biographies of the nominees for CBPA 2005 Officers once they are collated, look for that shortly if Leigh gets the time ;) November 19, 2004Check the Meetings Page, as Maurie Nielson from Ames National will be in town to give an Ames Repair Seminar on December 16, 2004. If you work on, test or repair Ames devices, get the best tips and tricks from an expert! It will be from 9:00 am to 3:00 pm, and there will be a small charge for a pizza & pop lunch, though the training session itself will be free. November 18, 2004THE NOMINATION PERIOD FOR 2005 CBPA OFFICERS & DIRECTORS HAS BEEN EXTENDED
TO SATURDAY, 11-27-04. Nominations for next years Officers are as follows: President: Byron McElhinney, Fred Spengler, Jason Hudson The CBPA is still accepting nomination until Midnight tonight, so you may email here if you wish to submit a nomination. My apologies for not getting this information about tonight's deadline out sooner, but had some personal/work issues consuming my time. It was found that the Bylaws linked on the home page to this site were not the correct version, the correct version is now linked in the left navigation bar. November 7, 2004Leigh Fenton asked that I post this, so here you go: The CBPA Meeting on Wednesday Nov 10th is at 9AM at Backflow Consulting
Testing & Repair 15403 E 17th, Unit F Aurora, CO. The Main Focus of the November
Meeting is: The conference was a great success, and thanks to all the speakers who gave presentations. All of us involved are still winding down from a hectic time last week, but we hope to have some of the PowerPoint presentations online after confirmation from the speakers. ABPA Vice-President, Rich Koenig showed a generic PP that might be available to water purveyors needing to give presentations. Les O'Brien gave at least two presentations of great interest as well, and Jim Purzycki's 8 hour repair extravaganza was well attended and enjoyed by the testers present. Jim's last presentation was hilarious, as members of his family played roles common in the backflow industry (in full costume!). Glenn Bodnar gave a talk on the coming December 31st, 2004 expiration of the extended Colorado certifications, and where we are headed as a state in the area of water quality and backflow prevention. Fred Spengler gave an update on the Backflow Prevention Education Council of Colorado, while yours truly showed some of the materials available on the BPECC web site for water purveyors. Thanks to Charlie Sullivan for his assistance in helping me in creating a video talking about the problems with testing backflow preventers on fire sprinkler systems. I'd also like to thank Ray Carnahan for his speech of tips and tricks about alarm systems and how fire system backflow preventer tamper switches work. If you did not see the video, we are now offering it online here on the CBPA web site. Click this link to view it, but it is better to RIGHT-CLICK and SAVE TARGET AS to download the file to your local hard drive and view it from there. This was our first effort at an educational video, so don't expect Steven Spielberg, but we think it is a worthwhile product. Your officers worked very hard to present a 2-day conference, so be sure and thank them the next time you see them. You can email them with your comments as well. Finally, the Meetings Page was updated, and the next meeting is November 10th (next week), at Backflow Consulting... check the Meetings Page for a map. October 24, 2004The CBPA 2004 Conference is this week, and the Agenda is online for you to check out all the great things scheduled. If you are the procrastinating type, this is your chance to get registered this week! August 16, 2004The Conference Page was updated with information about the 2004 Conference, so go over and check it out. This year, the event will be two days, October 28-29, so be sure and get signed up early, as it will have a great agenda for water purveyors and technicians. August 7, 2004The Meetings Page was updated, so check it out if you need maps or information. The next meeting is at the Aurora Municipal Center next Wednesday at 9:00 am, and should have lots of info about the CBPA Annual Conference. We should have more information at it on the Annual Conference page shortly. July 11, 2004Long time since an update, summer can be such a busy time... The June meeting at BCTR was a lot of fun, great food and some good information. Thanks to all that attended, to Pat for cooking, and Fred & Cory for hosting. The next meeting, this Wednesday July 14th is a special event as well. We have two training sessions planned, one at 9:00 am and one at 6:00 pm, so everyone should be able to attend. Nick Ferrara, the National Sales Manager for Flowmatic, will discuss and show repair techniques on DC and RP assemblies. The CBPA business meeting will be held during the morning session, and some food and beverages will be provided. There is no cost to attend, but please RSVP to Scott Campbell at 303-427-5556 or send email. You can get more information on the Meetings Page, which has been updated through the end of the year. May 29, 2004The ABPA National in Long Beach was a fun conference, and Colorado had about 8 CBPA members in attendance. Leigh has a few words about it in the June 2004 Newsletter. Don't miss the June evening meeting at BCTR for some food, fun and a friendly testing competition, so bring that test gauge to test yourself against other testers! We finally have the electronic newsletter and communication system in place, if you wish to receive email about upcoming events or the monthly newsletter, let us know here. May 3, 2004Just a note, the May CBPA meeting has been pushed back one week to May 19th, instead of the 12th due to the conflict with those attending the ABPA National conference. For those planning to go, there should be a few members from the Colorado area, so keep those eyes open. The Meetings Page has been updated with the latest information for the meeting and a map. April 24, 2004The new Photo Gallery is up, mainly made up from images from the old site. Our hope is that this can be an instructional tool showing good and bad backflow preventer installations. Click here to go directly to the page, or use the navigational menus at the top or left side of the page. The Photo Gallery home page has some basic instructions and an email address if you wish to send a picture to be included in the photo galleries. There was also a slight redesign of the web site, and it is hoped it is more user friendly at different resolutions. The navigation bar at the top right of this page should now point to most pages on the site. April 21, 2004The web site was down for a period today, and I hope no one was inconvenienced by the outage. It was all down to bring better service to our members, as the old host had limitations reducing our ability to serve you. Sending mail to info@backflow.org now includes the directors-at-large and both the Northern and Southern chapter officers. In addition, we should now be able to begin the electronic newsletter deliveries and even enable listserv capabilities. Bottom line is more functionality and features for our members! April 1st, 2004The next meeting will be held in Pueblo, with a 30 minute late start time, hopefully to allow those of you traveling to make it on time. Check the Meetings Page for updated information and a map. In addition, there will be a special training seminar hosted by the CBPA on Wednesday, April 7th, from 8:00 am until Noon. Maurie Nielson, the National Products Support Manager for Ames will be there discussing repair techniques for the larger Ames backflow assemblies. The discussion will be divided into three parts starting with the new Maxim/Colt series, then the 2000SS & 4000SS, and finally older discontinued devices such as the 4000RP & DC models. Please RSVP via the CBPA Email, or to Scott Campbell (CBPA Vice President) at 303-427-5556. The seminar is free and coffee & snacks will be provided. Again, information can be found on the Meetings Page as well... March 6, 2004Sheesh, give me a few tries and I might get it right... as someone noted, Wednesday of next week IS March 10th, not the 9th as was previously indicated below. So to be perfectly clear, the CBPA meeting is Wednesday, March 10th, at 9:00 am. Check the Meetings Page for updated information including a map to the meeting. Also, the BPECC website has information about a backflow prevention seminar to be held in Grand Junction on March 17th, head over there if you have an interest in attending. March 1, 2004One of the officers noticed I had an incorrect date for the next meeting, the next CBPA meeting is March 10th, not March 2nd as was indicated on the Meetings page yesterday. It has been correctly, but thanks to the person that caught it :) February 28, 2004New meeting information on the Meetings page, which will be updated with addresses and maps as they are available. The new format of the Newsletter/Ad Guide is on that page as well, we're still experimenting with format on that as well, but hope this one works for all. The January 2004 Minutes were also added to that page. There is still no resolution to the email problem due to ISP changes from President Bush's anti-spam regulations, but we hope to get that addressed as soon as possible. February 9, 2004The next regular CBPA meeting is to be held in conjunction with the Northern Subchapter this Wednesday, February 11th. Please see the Meeting Page for more information, or the Northern Feb 2004 Newsletter & Agenda. Apologies for the lack of updates lately, everyone has been real busy. A CBPA member is currently working on all the CBPA pictures we have for the new picture gallery, and I hope to have an update to that soon. January 13, 2004We're having "issues" with the monthly emailed Newsletter & Ad Guide, which is due to the new anti-spam regulations President Bush signed into action. Most ISP's are enforcing an email limit that is affecting our ability to send. We're exploring our options at this point, so please bear with us until this situation is resolved. January 8, 2004We've made it to a new year, and the CBPA hopes everyone had a great holiday season! A few site updates such as archiving of the 2003 News which is reflected on the left in the menus. In addition, there is some updated information on the Meetings Page for the January meeting at the Aurora Municipal Center, so head over there if you're attending the meeting. There have also been some requests to bring back the picture gallery in addition to some new pictures recently received. I'm exploring some different formats for a cleaner and easier to browse picture display system. You'll hear about it here when that work is complete.
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