I attended a 30th anniversary last week. There was plenty of good food and a special cake for the 400 or so people who filled the ballroom. It was a good chance to catch up with old friends and colleagues.
We were there for Forum North 2012 and even though I haven’t been a delegate for all three decades I have been a supporter for many years. This annual conference puts Thunder Bay on the map.
Forum North is a Health and Safety Conference and Trade Show that happens in this city every year in early November.
Most delegates arrive to represent workplaces and businesses in Northwestern Ontario but over the years Forum North has hosted visitors and speakers from all over the world.
Anyone attending the conference quickly discovers that Health and Safety has come a long way from those gross videotapes and stern warnings in the coffee room that once passed for a safety program. Thirty years brings a lot of change.
The local planning committee represents the Health and Safety brain trust in the region. They have responded with a program, speakers and presentations that reflect the creativity and diversity of workers and business owners in the 21st century.
Conference delegates have plenty of choices during the two day event. There are six series of presentations with topics ranging from essential workplace skills like inspections and hazard assessment all the way to emerging trends such as psychological workplace hazards and the multi-generational workforce.
There are keynote speakers at breakfast and lunch each day. They may be light and humorous, inspirational or thought provoking – or sometimes all three at once. Also during the conference, local business leaders are invited to attend a CEO’s breakfast where they can meet, greet, eat and listen to an important guest speaker with a timely message.
The planners and organizers of this conference know how important this gathering has become as it keeps growing and attracting more delegates year after year. At the end of every Forum North a small army of health and safety professionals returns to the workplace renewed and refreshed by the support and friendship of their colleagues. Good will abounds.
The traditional approach to on-the-job safety is driven by statistics, but numbers can be misleading and often lead to poor decisions. Real, long-lasting gains require a different approach, one based on sincerity and good will. This is where our local conference shines.
It’s easy to count lost fingers, sore backs and trips to the hospital. But to develop long-term relationships and understanding takes dedicated people and a determined effort. It takes something like Forum North.
Occupational Health and Safety can be a thankless job at times. It is impossible to count the workplace accidents or fatalities that are prevented and never occur.
Nobody knows how many families live happily ever after because Mom or Dad learned something at Forum North that kept them safe from harm. Good deeds sometimes slip by unnoticed.
At the end of the day when our loved ones return home safely from work, there’s no way of knowing who might have said or done something that saved their life on the job.
It’s just nice to know that when the time comes, there are caring people like that looking out for us.
In the meantime the good people at Forum North will proceed with plans for an even better conference next year.
They can be secure in the knowledge that after thirty years of effort, injuries have been prevented, lives have been saved and families have been rescued because of them.
