Flower Market Circular – 27 February 2020

Funds raised from the Melbourne Market Charity Golf Day go toward supporting DEBRA Australia, a charity that supports individuals, families and carers affected by Epidermolysis Bullosa – the worst disease you’ve never heard of.

Epidermolysis Bullosa (EB) is a rare disease whereby the skin blisters and peels at the slightest touch. Living with EB has been likened to living with third-degree burns. It is very painful, and sufferers must be bandaged every day with dressings to protect and medicate their wounds.

Click here to read Eliza’s story of living with EB and watch the video below to learn more about this terrible disease.

There is still time to register your golf team. To download a registration form, or for more information about how you can support DEBRA Australia visit the Fresh State website.

This month there have been two incidences where evacuation alarms have rung throughout the site. Fortunately, both recent incidents were false alarms caused by a detector fault. These faulty detectors have both since been replaced. Still, as a result, the MMA is investigating a range of process and procedure improvements to reduce false evacuation alarms and subsequent whole site evacuations in the future.
We are,

• expanding our replacement program of all ageing smoke detectors to minimise the occurrence of future detectors failing,
• seeking approval from the Metropolitan Fire Brigade (MFB) to enhance our fire alarm system to require two detectors to be triggered before progressing to an automatic evacuation. This includes implementing automated user warning systems that cascade out from the affected area,
• ensuring the public address (PA) system is accessible during alarms to advise market users of updates and information as it becomes available. Currently, if an evacuation alarm is triggered the PA system is disabled; and,
• investigating the introduction of automatic closure of entry boom gates, and turnstiles during an alarm that will prevent vehicles and pedestrians entering the site during an evacuation.

The recent false alarms have been unfortunate, and we believe the measures we are rolling out will reduce false alarms in the future. However, we need the Market community to treat every evacuation alarm as a real threat and proceed to your designated evacuation point where the Fire Warden can update you of the status of the emergency and instruct you on what you need to do to stay safe.

The Melbourne Market Drug and Alcohol Policy applies to every person on Market Land, including, business principals, salespeople, forklift drivers, office workers, florists, warehouse staff, cleaners, MMA staff, contractors, visitors and anyone else at the Market, at any time of day.

You can read more about drug and alcohol testing on the Melbourne Market website.