The Nova Paint Club, an international organization that encourages the sharing of technical and other expertise among independent paint companies around the world, celebrated its 20th anniversary with a gala dinner on May 18 at a location near Stuttgart, Germany.

The dinner and a fireworks display concluded a three-day conference attended by club board members and technical representatives from each of the 14 member companies.

During ceremonies at the dinner, Nova President and Managing Director Rainer Votteler presented the President's Award to Jose Nogueira, technical director of the CIN Group, for his contributions to the Club over the past 20 years. Nogueira was a delegate to the first Nova convention in Cannes in 1983 and is current chairman of the Nova Technical Coordinating Committee.

Peter Lovell, another attendee at the inaugural Cannes meeting, was presented with a certificate recognizing his efforts as secretary general of the club for the majority of the last 20 years.

Current Nova club member companies are Votteler (Germany), Asian Paints (India), Barloworld Australia, CIN (Portugal), Cloverdale Paint Inc. (Canada), COMEX (Mexico), Ilios Cotachem (Greece), SIME (Malaysia), Pintuco (Colombia), Barloworld Plascon (South Africa), Sinteplast (Argentina), Tambour (Israel), Vogel Paint Inc. (United States), and Valentine (Spain).

The next meeting of the club is scheduled for October in England. More information regarding the Nova Paint Club and its members can be found at the club's website, located at www.novapaint.org.