The Flooring Contractors Association (FCICA)

they need to know in three days in order to become certified installation managers. Another option is the ‘Live Online’ option, which can be taken from anywhere, as the name suggests, with the learning done live with an instructor online. The FCICA has its own quarterly digital magazine, The Flooring Contractor, and further communicates with members via two annual meetings. These usually comprise a convention in March and a mid-year meeting in October. The latter is usually educational and includes a tour of a local manufacturing facility that is a participating member, as well as some product demos. The mid-year meetings usually attract around 100 members, with 117 attending in 2019. Due to COVID-19, the association’s first virtual / online mid-year meeting was in 2020, with 430 attendees, nearly quadruple the usual number. Church agreed that the turnout was phenomenal, which she attributed to the fact that, “one of the things about our industry and our meetings is that often times it’s hard for contractors to get away from work and take a few days off to travel to a meeting or convention.” She explained how this is especially true of smaller contractors, “which we want to be supporting and have in our membership.” The virtual meeting in October 2020 was like an extension of the online education that the FCICA does throughout the year, including two or three webinars a month. As such, the virtual meeting meant being able to get through to far