Pre-Conference Panel Presentation:
On Sunday September 9, 2007 I attended the Pre-Conference Panel Presentation. Wow! When I looked around the table at all the experience and global representation, I could not help but be impressed. Thanks to Peter Sturm for arranging this one.
The panel was made up of seven international speakers - Lisa Fowlie – IOSH, UK; Mike Thompson – ASSE, USA; Paul Pascoe –Australia; Mark Warrington – Dubai UAE; Leonard Gaius – Africa; Roberta Sheng-Taylor – WorkSafeBC; Vic Pakalnis – ON MOL and Peter Sturm CSSE. The group discussed “Competencies of the Safety Professional – A National and Global Perspective”. The panels' presentations were informational, but most of all thought provoking and challenging. They allowed us to explore concepts beyond our technical skills and information and allowed consideration of other skills and information that could and maybe should be applied within our profession – leadership, management of change, social and corporate responsibilities, management business approaches… the list went on. Thanks to all who shared and presented on this panel.
For me personally, hearing about the challenges of the safety profession from around the world and the variety of ideas on what we should have in our safety professional tool kit was a wonderful pre-conference jump start. But that was just me… if you attended this panel, what did you think? Was there something that stood out for you? From the information that this panel gave, is there a direction in which the CSSE should go with regards to content for the future PDC’s or for our educational deliveries?
Day 1:
The conference theme this year was “Partnerships in Practice”, reflecting on the importance of forging partnerships in the world of Occupational health and Safety. As President, it is a great honour to be able to open and MC a conference of this calibre. With opening speakers such as Justin Trudeau and Diana Miles (WorkSafeBC), we could tell that the conference was going to be right on the mark. The previous day’s panel challenged us to think about who we are and what we need to have as competencies within the profession. This first day of the conference continued that challenge as well as provided us with some tools to meet those needs.
This was the most attended conference to date – 550 people in attendance, as well as the largest exhibit to date – 65 exhibitors. This first day of the conference for me was “WOW”.
I want to emphasize that a professional development conference is not just about sitting around listening to other people speak, it allows for many social activities. Monday night’s event included a dinner theatre, but my favourite entertainment of the conference was seeing the Queen of England knight Sir John and Sir Jim.
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