Fran Thorne from Magnum Signs in Gisbourne, Victoria, was inducted as an ASGA Life Member last Thursday night at the 2026 Easy Signs National Sign & Graphics Awards, for her dedication not only to the business she owns with husband Lindsay, but to the future of the industry through promotions and training, and countless contributions behind the scenes to support ASGA initiatives. This is what ASGA President, Mick Harrold, said about Fran in his presentation speech. 

Fran Thorne is the first of our Life Members to be admitted tonight.

Now, Fran’s an interesting one because, normally when you look at the people who receive Life Membership, they’ve probably spent years sitting on the National Executive, perhaps been President or held one of those fairly visible positions.

Fran hasn’t.

Fran’s contribution has been quite different.

She’s spent many, many years involved with the Victorian committees and, probably more importantly, she’s been one of those people who just turns up and helps when something needs doing.

A really good example is actually this event.

Fran has been involved behind the scenes with our awards for many years. I think it goes back to around 2008, possibly even earlier than that, and she’s worked very closely with Visual Connections and the various committees to help make these nights happen.

And I suspect quite a few people in this room who have won awards over the years have actually been helped by Fran without ever knowing it.

Because while you’ve been walking up here and enjoying your moment in the spotlight, Fran has quite often been standing just off the side of the stage, handing over the next trophy or certificate and making sure the right thing goes to the right person.

Which is probably quite a good description of Fran’s contribution to ASGA generally.

She’s been there, doing the work, without necessarily needing everyone to know she was doing it.

But the awards are only one part of it.

Fran and her husband Lindsay have also given a lot of their time to promoting the industry more broadly.

They’ve run their own sign business in Gisborne for many years, and they’ve been involved with ASGA at trade shows and industry events. I particularly remember PacPrint in Melbourne, where we had a substantial industry stand.

Fran and Lindsay were there demonstrating the trade, talking to people and promoting the industry. They brought equipment in and demonstrated both the traditional skills of sign making and the newer digital side of the industry.

That’s a fair commitment. It’s not just turning up for an hour and having a chat. It’s bringing your gear in, setting it up and spending days talking to people about an industry that you care about.

Anotehr important contribution that Fran has made was around training.

When the Certificate III in Signs and Graphics was being reviewed, around 2015, there was a real risk that Victoria may lose it’s only TAFE facility.

Fran was heavily involved with ASGA and others in advocating for the industry — dealing with the training organisations and government and making the case that this trade needed proper facilities and proper investment.

Ultimately, that work helped lead to substantial government funding for the sign school at Victoria University. From memory, it was around $600,000, which went towards modernising the equipment and facilities used to train sign apprentices.

And I think that’s worth thinking about for a moment.

That happened roughly a decade ago.

So there are apprentices who went through those facilities who are now qualified tradespeople. There are businesses in this room employing people who received better training because that work happened.

And most of them would have absolutely no idea that Fran Thorne had anything to do with it.

That’s the sort of contribution that can be very easy to miss.

Associations like ours aren’t just the people you see standing on a stage or sitting on a National Executive. A lot of the important work happens quietly in the background, and it relies on people being prepared to put their hand up, give their time and get involved when the industry needs them.

Fran has done that for a very long time.

And while tonight is about Fran, I do also want to acknowledge Lindsay. They’ve spent a lot of years in this industry together, they’ve run their business together and they’ve both given a lot of their time to it. So Lindsay, I think you deserve a bit of recognition tonight as well.

Fran, you’ve spent a lot of years standing just off the side of this stage handing awards to everybody else.

So I reckon it’s about time you came up here and got something yourself.

Fran Thorne, congratulations on becoming a Life Member of the Australian Sign & Graphics Association.