The Safety & Health Expo 2019
It is Europe’s leading health and safety event, and this year’s Safety and Health expo was no exception to the shows reputation of industry excellence. There were thousands of businesses displaying their latest innovations, giveaways and interactive software for visitors to explore. In addition to our own stand, we spotted many influential health safety and environmental business’ including; IEMA, IOSH (With their effective NTTL Campaign on Asbestos), NEBOSH, Safety Media, Shirley Parsons and many more.
Here are our highlights of the show:
Courage, Resilience & Breaking The Mould
The three keynote speakers echoed this year’s theme of courage, resilience and breaking the mould perfectly.
On day one, Steph McGovern delivered an inspirational speech on infiltrating the engineering industry from a young age and progressing into becoming a huge BBC presenter. She discussed the skills gap present in the U.K, and the need to encourage young people to pursue careers in HSE and to value vocational skills as much as academic ones. She actively delivers talks to local schools and is involved in apprenticeships for young people.
Michael ‘Eddie the Eagle’ Edwards spoke about risk on the second day of the expo, alongside Larry Wilson CEO of SafeStart UK. They discussed viewing risk from a different perspective; instead of focusing on implementing measures to deal with risk, we can start by altering the way we think to avoid risk altogether. Eddie gave the example of injuring his eye at a car boot sale and doing some substantial damage, in comparison to skiing down a 90 ft jump – it was a much more high risk situation, but often complacency can be the fundamental cause of why accidents occur.
Mental Health
On the third and last day, Johnny Wilkinson CBE talked on mental health, how he dealt with injuries throughout his career and finding self-acceptance. After winning England the Rugby World Cup in 2003 with his drop kick, Johnny felt like he had achieved the goal he had been longing for his whole life. But what happens thereafter? When you finally achieve what you want, what is next? These were the sort of questions he found himself pondering. It transpired that he was focusing his energy in the wrong way. He was focusing on the end goals, and applying so much pressure on himself that he wasn’t able to enjoy the moment. This type of obsessive and pressured mindset gave no solace when goals were achieved. He concluded, and emphasized that self-acceptance, acceptance of failure and trying again is imperative to a healthy state of mind.
Highlights From The Seminars
There was a full agenda of seminars daily at the expo, see below highlights of the talks that RRC attended.
Wellbeing
Although the theme of this year’s show was courage, resilience and breaking the mould – there was a huge emphasize on wellbeing throughout the expo. With a dedicated Workplace Wellbeing Theatre, the topic was discussed by various professionals and from several different perspectives and industries. The rise in the awareness of this subject is an indicator of future trends.
Goodbye
RRC had a great time at this year’s Expo, networking, learning and interacting with our current and future students. We were even presented with our 3rd place trophy, which we won in this years Tomorrows Health & Safety Awards for our online courses. It was amazing to receive it face to fact at the expo.
We are already looking forward to next years show!
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Michelle Whitney, BA (Hons)
RRC Digital Marketing Assistant, Blogger & Writer