On the 13th December 27 members and guests of the West of England branch attended the members paper evening held at Tracy Park Golf Club, Wick. Following one of the most successful evenings last year, the speakers kept up the high standards and duly gave two excellent presentations. The topics chosen were very different in content matter, and so the style in which they were presented was reflected in each case.

The first speaker Andrew Open gave his presentation regarding the way in which Wainwright's had taken the decision to employ a profoundly deaf gentleman as a dump truck driver at the quarry. Early enquires involved consultations with Training services and consultants, Job centre plus, Strode college and the Royal National Institute for the Deaf.

In-house preparations in terms of workplace conditions using Risk assessments, advice from the industry and an RNID survey were carried out. Deaf awareness training was organised for the entire workforce. Finally all the preparation and planning were put into practice. The Health and Safety aspects were of primary importance as were simple logistics, communication, the review of workplace practices and workplace adaptability. All the entailed costs accrued during the project were refunded in full and the company now has the Disability symbol on all it's company letter headings to show commitment to employing persons with disability.

Andrew dealt with a series of questions from the floor.

The second paper by Brendan Cleaver was a summary of the analysis of the results of a survey carried out previously at a health and safety day for quarry workers in the south west of England. In essence it was a psychometric study designed to show whether human behaviour, traits, attitudes and personality types etc could be linked to the reduction of occupational accidents and injuries in the Quarry Industry.

The aim of the study was to identify what personality types were employed by the industry and following from this do these types have any correlation with a measurable propensity for risk.

Four questionnaires were used; Risk Orientation, Risk propensity, Risk Motivation and Risk Scenarios. The results of these four survey questionnaires were then presented in in a series of graphs including radar charts. A summary of the results were displayed and showed that while the quarry industry may have tough macho image this was not supported by the findings. However it was noted that the subjects were more prepared to accept risk of injury in terms of physical hazard compared to risks from illness, social behaviour or financial actions.

The speaker's overall conclusion was that the delegates attending the West of England seminar deviated slightly away from the expected norm. In summing up he recognised that as the survey was based on members of Institute of Quarrying who were attending a safety seminar there may be a presumption they would be safety conscious and considered a wider and more random sample of industry workers would give a truer picture.

Brendan then answered a wide range of questions from the floor.

Following deliberations by a panel of judges on two excellent papers, agreement was reached to award the Exxon Prize to Andrew Open (on the right) and the Vic Callicott Award to Brendan Cleaver (on the left).

A vote of thanks was then duly given.

A.Shakeshaft - Branch committee member