IOSH president's diary

Some Seoul searching

27 June: Catch a flight to Seoul in South Korea to attend the 18th World Congress on Safety and Health at Work being hosted by KOSHA and the 24th APOSHO Meeting. Korea means The Land of Morning Calm. The main theme this year is “Safety and health at Work: A Societal Responsibility”.

28 June: Attend the very impressive opening ceremony and afterwards I give the opening plenary presentation to delegates entitled “Designing in Safety – and keeping it there.” Five very eminent speakers from across the globe follow, who talk on a range of issues and we finish off with a Q&A session.

29 June – 2 July: I have to say the next few days became a real blur of events/sessions and meetings. I gave a presentation on Wiseup2work and WHAC to an audience as part of the International Film and Multi Multimedia Festival and Exhibition. I also attended the APOSHO AGM on behalf of the UK and IOSH. It was good to see IOSH represented so well in various sessions with presentations from John Lacey, Rakesh Maharaj, David Evans, Vince McNeilly, and Philip McAleenan among others. I think this shows the high regard in which we are now held by other OH&S organisations around the world.

I was also able to drop into a session run by INSHPO (of which IOSH is a founder member) to listen to the latest in International Transportability of Safety Qualifications. I was also pleased to hear that INSHPO had just had submissions for entry (and had accepted them) from South Korea and China. While the conference was in full swing, IOSH personnel and branch members were staffing the stand.

There were a number of social events laid on for us, and I was very happy to represent IOSH at these -  the first being the APOSHO members evening and the inevitable karaoke.  I am willing to pay good money to ensure that photos of this night and my efforts at both singing and dancing aren't published. However, I think we went over a storm with YMCA (and I’m not saying who was who in the IOSH version of the Village People either). The second event was a Korean evening with a mix of traditional and new Korean culture, which was an absolute delight to see and hear.

2 July: Leave Korea for Hong Kong in order to attend a meeting arranged through the branch.

Off we go again!

16 June: Off to Belfast to attend Northern Ireland branch AGM tomorrow.  Brian Goodfellow, Branch Chairman, meets me at the airport.

17 June: Brian picks me up from my hotel for lunch with John Kirkpatrick (Vice Chair) and Philip McAleenan (the branch council representative). We then move off to the meeting. I am asked to take the chair for the elections to the main committee roles and was pleased to oversee the installation of the new branch committee, a pleasing mixture of old and new blood. Congratulations in particular to John Kirkpatrick who was elected chairman for the ensuing term of office. I updated the branch on IOSH strategy issues, a sort of “state of the nation” presentation, and then had to cut and run with Brian down to Eire for their branch conference “Best Practice and Emerging Issues”.

18 June: Ireland branch conference. I was particularly interested in John Holden’s session on Managing Safety at Sporting Events. Lots of good stuff for everyone though, including a very topical presentation on the designation EUROSHM (European Occupational Safety and Health Manager) from Professor Andrew Hale.   

I made presentations to congratulate and celebrate newly chartered members within the branch. This issue has cropped up on the IOSH website members forum recently, and I hope we can look at how this “pilot” in Eire can be widened to make it more of a celebratory event for those new to chartered member status in all branches. I was also taken by an innovative board game at the conference exhibition. It was produced by college students to raise awareness of and prevent accidents in the farming community, which is a particular area of concern in Ireland. No time to stop for the branch AGM as I had to catch a flight back to Stansted (which was then delayed) so eventually got home at about 12:30 am.

19 June: Up at 04:30 to drive up to Hinckley in Leicestershire to present a plenary session called “Conkers, Colleges and Competence” to the Association of Colleges National Conference. Had the chance to meet up with Malcolm Tullett, until recently a member of the Board of Trustees, who asked if I would introduce his breakfast seminar session about behavioural safety, which I was pleased to do. It was good to meet up with so many IOSH members who work in the further education sector and who made themselves known to me during the course of the day. Stayed until the afternoon sessions to listen to Jill Joyce, IOSH Senior Technical Adviser, assisted very ably by Mary Ogungbeje, who gave a very lively, informative, amusing and well received session on our Workplace Hazard Awareness Course to about 70 or so very interested educators.

24 June: Drive up to Sunderland in order to attend the Tyne and Wear Branch AGM which starts at 12:30 tomorrow.

25 June: Meet up with branch officers and members for lunch before the branch AGM. Not asked to chair this one, so I sit back and take a break while the branch executive officers give their reports and the committee for 2008/09 is elected and installed. Present my session on “Bonkers Conkers – how IOSH deals with the media” and answer some very interesting questions from members. I didn’t know it at the time, although the camera in the back of the room might have given it away to a more eagle eyed observer, but the whole of the presentation was being recorded for the branch website. Ouch!! I hate hearing myself on tape and the very thought of watching my performance and picking up on all those annoying little issues I have really worries me, so good luck to those who choose to sit through it for the full 40 minutes. But hey, what a good idea for members who can’t attend the meeting!

26 June: Day of personal admin, a.k.a. washing, ironing and packing ready to go off to Korea and then on to Hong Kong.

Home sweet home

13 June: Arrived back in the UK after an interesting and educational visit to the ASSE Professional Development Conference in Las Vegas. Rob Strange and I took part in various meetings while in the US to discuss mutual issues with representatives from the Canadian Society of Safety Engineering and the Singapore Institution of Safety Officers, among others.

It’s clear that we share many of the same challenges, and it’s useful to get together to look at ways forward. It was particularly useful to discuss how health and safety qualifications and competence can be taken with our members when they travel. Not an easy issue to resolve but I felt we made a lot of progress.

I bumped into Lawrence Bamber (an ex IOSH president) during the conference, he’d just been to the ASSE’s Hawaii Chapter conference where he also presented a paper. You may think that the feathers I’m wearing in one of the photos on this blog are colourful – but you should have seen Lawrence’s Hawaiian shirt!

14 June: Found it difficult to get back into BST and spent the early hours watching TV and reading Ceefax and Teletext. Read the Queen’s Birthday Honours list and was shocked to see that the man I have just spent five days with (Rob Strange) has been awarded an OBE for services to health and safety! Well done Rob! I know first hand the efforts he puts in to furthering the aims of this Institution, its members and the profession, and I can think of no more worthy a recipient. He will forevermore be known to me as the OBE-one, and I now know why he felt so at home on the long trek across the skywalk(er) to/from the hotel/ conference centre.

15 June: Spent the day catching up on emails and IOSH business, washing/ironing and repacking to go off to Belfast tomorrow to attend the Northern Ireland Branch AGM on Tuesday, and the Ireland Branch event in Dublin on Wednesday. I also spent some time checking over my presentation on sensible health and safety for the Association of Colleges conference in Leicester on Thursday.

Oh, and it was Father’s day too! My son is on a motorcycling holiday in the Lake District, so I had lunch with just my daughter. They both thought I needed a new suitcase, so they bought me a bright electric blue one. Even I won’t miss it on the airport carousel. 

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas…

This is a term I've heard frequently while here in Las Vegas for the 2008 Professional Development ASSE Conference.  However, one thing that doesn’t stay in Vegas is the undoubted passion of safety professionals from wherever they are based in the world to share knowledge and experiences.

I’m having a little trouble adjusting to the different time zones, having passed through 5 before finally arriving here. I'm drafting this post at 22.45 on Tuesday, but at home in the UK it's 06.45 on Wednesday. The temperature is a pleasantly cool 104 degrees Fahrenheit - thank goodness for air con!

Rob Strange and I attended the ASSE House of Delegates meeting yesterday (Monday) as a guest of Mike Thompson, the current ASSE President, who we welcomed to IOSH08 earlier this year. The House of Delegates meeting is a little like our AGM but different in a number of respects. Various Chapters and individuals came forward and declared sums of money for the ASSE foundation and scholarships totalling over $124,000 - an impressive sum.

Business over, it was off to rehearse for the opening ceremony where I was to give fraternal greetings on behalf of IOSH. I have to say that when I first saw the size of the room and the number of chairs my first thought was “What the heck have I let myself in for?!” But panic aside, it was time well-spent, because I’ve never used a teleprompter before and the training was very useful. I wonder if I can claim  CPD for it?

Then off to a reception for ASSE Past Presidents and Fellows where it was time to renew old friendships like the one with Eldeen Pozniak, President of the Canadian Society of Safety Engineering, and to make some new ones. Off to bed early (or was it late) as my body clock was telling me one thing and my watch something completely different.

Up at 06:00 (local time) and off to the opening ceremony. It was an impressive one with some 3,400 attendees at the conference. Eldeen stole the show as usual when she gave CSSE fraternal greetings dressed as a Las Vegas showgirl, and somehow or another I ended up wearing the feathers too (but not on stage). If you don’t believe me, have a look at the photos on this blog.

I managed to get some time off in the afternoon and visit the famous Las Vegas strip. But unfortunately some of the attractions - such as the dancing water fountains and the Treasure Island stunt show - were cancelled due to, yes you’ve guessed it, ‘elf and safety'. Too windy it seems.

I haven’t won a fortune as yet, so it looks like it is keep on with the day job. However there is always tomorrow. Time to do some final tweaking to the presentation I’m giving to delegates tomorrow entitled “Designing in Safety – and keeping it there.” Also need to properly prepare for 3 meetings we have tomorrow.

And bringing us up to date…

2 June: attended the quarterly update meeting with HSE at Rose Court, accompanied by Lisa Fowlie and Rob Strange.

3 June: travelled to Leicester for presidential team meeting prior to Board of Trustees, then final preparations to my presentation for the ASSE conference next week.

4 June: Board of Trustees meeting at The Grange.

5 June: a rare day at home responding to e-mails, phone calls and making final preparations for the next few weeks’ travelling – which will include America, Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland, Korea and Hong Kong!

The first of these trips starts on Sunday, when I fly to Las Vegas for the ASSE conference with IOSH chief executive Rob Strange.