Health and Safety seminar – resounding success.

Chesterfield, was perhaps the biggest health and safety seminar event in Derbyshire and South Yorkshire this year. It was by all accounts a resounding success. Invited guests, safety managers, turned up from all over the country on a wonderfully sunny early summer’s day in May. Somerset, London, Durham, Lancashire as well as a good attendance from local companies, to hear and see a fast moving programme of a whole range of subjects. From the latest in fire precautions, stress management, developments in how courts determine the level of fines, through to how the human brain is easily tricked making us more prone to accidents, safety management software, moving vehicle detection and much more.

However, the presentation enjoyed most by the audience, was the presentation on how to gain the co-operation of the workforce. The presentation was certainly well delivered by my colleague Mark Eastburn who not only has a vast experience in this area, but also possesses a higher level of teaching qualification than most. On reflection though, the huge demand by other HS managers to discover new and successful methods of gaining compliance is recognisable. Is this the greatest problem we are faced with I wonder?

The weather was also good to us on the day, allowing for a very relaxed chance to get together and discuss work place issues with our colleagues outside on the patio while lunch was consumed.

The feedback I received from the seminar was overwhelmingly encouraging. Everyone found it to be useful in some way or other and took something away from the day. Some of us found the chance to catch up with old colleagues to be invaluable. Others found it useful in the way it enabled them to escape from the day to day grind of management and find the time to relax and reflect but in a professional atmosphere.

You will be pleased to note that next years’ date has already been set as we are now working towards the 19th April 2018. As always we will build on previous years to make subtle improvements. The next seminar is due to have a nationally recognised guest speaker. We will also look to lengthen some of the presentation slots although not all. We will continue to stick to the latest format of making the presentations wide and varying. Therefore if one presentation is of little interest, then the following one, being in a completely different subject area, should hopefully be of more interest to the individual and to successfully hold their attention.

Did anything disappoint us? Not really on the day, everything worked so well and managed to keep to the tight schedule. However, on the build-up, we were disappointed by the local paper, who despite requesting an editorial, still could not find space in their lightweight periodical for such a great and well attended event. Oh well, I guess this typifies the claustrophobic and depressingly inwardly looking paper it is.

Thanks to everyone who attended and made this day such an important and useful event. See you again on 19th April 2018!