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Trilliums: It's time for everyone to get involved

By Michael Knell, Canadian correspondent -- Furniture Today, September 9, 2001

By now, every furniture manufacturer in Canada should have received a Trillium Awards competition entry kit. And with the Sept. 28 deadline for entries just a couple of weeks away, I hope everyone will participate in this celebration of excellence in Canadian-made household furniture.

For the past several months, I've had the privilege of serving as an advisor to the Trillium Awards Steering Committee under the chairmanship of Laine Reynolds, vice president of sales and marketing for Superstyle Furniture. It's no secret the program has been criticized in recent years for a variety of reasons — most valid, some not.

To their credit, the Ontario Furniture Manufacturers Assn. revamped the Trillium steering committee this year and told it to redesign and rebuild the program. They've gone a long way towards achieving that goal, although much work remains to be done.

For the 2002 program, the committee has taken several small steps to make it better. These include tightening the judging criteria, inviting both the Quebec Furniture Manufacturers Assn. and Furniture West to sit on the steering committee, creating a new entry kit and making the awards banquet more entertaining and relevant.

They also took two important steps to bolster the credibility of the program. An outside accounting firm was selected to tabulate the judges' scores to determine the winners. Secondly, they decided that if a category has only one entry, the manufacturer will be given the choice of either transferring the product to another category or withdrawing that entry from the competition.

This is only the beginning and there are many big issues still to be resolved. For example, I believe there are far too many categories, especially in casual dining, occasional chairs, motion furniture, dual-purpose upholstery (sofa-sleepers) and portable lighting.

There also has been considerable backroom discussion about changing the program's name. Proponents of change say "Trillium" is too regional and doesn't reflect the entire country. Opponents say Trillium is an established franchise with a recognizable name.

I believe the name doesn't matter all that much if the program's integrity is intact. There are merits to both sides of the argument, but it's more important to improve the program and increase participation. Fair-minded people should agree that, despite the remaining problems, the program is moving in the right direction.

What the Trilliums need now is support. If you're a Canadian furniture maker and haven't received an entry kit, call Linda Smith, the OFMA's director of member services, at (905) 677-6561 or send her an e-mail at info@ofma.ca.

If every manufacturer in the country entered one product in one category, this would be the most successful year in the program's history.

Win or lose, it's a worthwhile thing to do.

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