Consistent with the various governments’ requests all around Australia and New Zealand, ARA has encouraged our employees to receive the COVID vaccination. Our various state and federal governments have been telling us the best way out of the pandemic and start living a normal life is to get all of us vaccinated. Many, if not all, of our customers are requiring us to be fully vaccinated to work on construction sites and visit their premises.
As highlighted in our blog post of 20 August 2021 https://blog.aragroup.com.au/2021/08/20/vaccination-lottery-ara-group/, ARA has established a vaccination lottery for the months of August, September, October, November and December. Employees who became fully vaccinated in those months were and are eligible to participate in a lottery. The winner of each of those five lotteries will receive $10,000.
Our Winners
ARA is very pleased to report on the results of our August and September lotteries. Scott Murray, an electrician and fire alarm technician in our Sydney ARA Fire office was the winner of our first lottery for the month of August. Edward Federman, Managing Director of ARA, whilst working from home in early September as required by the New South Wales health orders, had his nine year old granddaughter Ella pick the name out of a big bowl holding the 445 names of employees who became fully vaccinated in August. Federman called Scott on the phone and reached him whilst he was working at an aged care facility, one of ARA Fire’s service customers. Scott indicated that, although not mandated, he became vaccinated as soon as the vaccine was available to him as his partner is a midwife and she and her close contacts were required to be fully vaccinated. Scott also noted that all visitors to the aged care facility where he was working, will be required to be fully vaccinated.
In the month of September, another 593 ARA employees became fully vaccinated and were eligible to participate in the September vaccination lottery. The total of all ARA employees as of the end of September was 1,038, or 41% of all ARA employees. Once again, Federman’s granddaughter Ella picked the winner of the September lottery as he was still required to work from home and Ella was still being home schooled. Andrew McElroy, a sprinkler fitter in the ARA Fire office in Brisbane was the winner of the September lottery. Edward was able to reach Andrew as he was home due to his current work requirement to be in the evening. Andrew was thrilled and expressed his gratitude for winning the $10,000 as his partner was pregnant and due in a couple of months. Andrew said that his winnings would really help with the expenses of having a newborn home in the near future.
As an essential service provider of building services for facilities and infrastructure, ARA is very proud to sponsor its vaccination lottery. Federman said,
“We hope this initiative will heighten all of our employees’ awareness of how important it is to be fully vaccinated. This is necessary to protect our employees’ family, their workmates, our customers and the community. It is going to be an absolute requirement for all of us to be vaccinated in order to carry out our work on construction sites and customers’ buildings.”
The next lottery winner will be chosen on Wednesday the 3rd of November for those ARA employees who become fully vaccinated in the month of October.
For more information on COVID-19 vaccines visit: https://www.health.gov.au/initiatives-and-programs/covid-19-vaccines