On Sunday, 5 August 2012, MAPO organized a seminar and forum for opticians in the Klang Valley. Held at Cititel Hotel Mid Valley, Kuala Lumpur, it started at 9.00 a.m. and ended around 1.00 p.m. All opticians, juruoptiks, pink certificate holders and “Grandfather Clause” holders were invited to the event. It was organized solely for the benefit of practicing opticians, fully sponsored by MAPO.

Mr Paul Ho, Country Sales manager of Car Zeiss Vision Care Malaysia, was invited to present a talk on the status of the optical business and to share tips on strategizing and improving sales.

The objective of the forum was to open the agenda to the floor for opticians to have open discussions about what they want for their future and seek their opinion on upgrading issues.

Some of the points that were discussed among the 60 attendees included proposed processes for upgrading of opticians to optometrists and future job scopes of current and future opticians.

Mr Steven Ng, an opticians’ representative to the Malaysian Optical Council, was invited to inform and update attendees on activities and decisions of the Council that would affect opticians.

It was felt by some attendees that it would be ideal to have more opticians to attend the forum to get more support, because the subject matters were crucial and any decision made would affect everyone. It was proposed that MAPO jointly organize another forum with associations such as MOA.