The recently launched FIA Education & Social Series of events kicked off with the Education event, "Falling from heights and managing SafeWork NSW inspections" sold out a week early and 70 people in attendance.

"We are delighted that our first education event was sold out", stated FIA General Manager, Michael Sugg. "The FIA Board and I have spent a good deal of time in planning our events for our members and it was great to see so many people. A lot was discussed in the session and we took on board even more feedback on how we can assist members further by working with SafeWork NSW to provide access to additional guidelines and clarification on a number of issues".

A packed room with the Lendlease site at Barangaroo as the back drop.

Steve Maher, principal inspector - construction interventions, started the session off with the statistics recently gathered by SafeWork and went on to discus a number of examples of how companies and individuals had been held responsible for safety issues and how those in the room could avoid falls from heights. 

As is the aim of these education workshops, there was a lot of discussion on a number of issues that affect formworkers and working at heights. An example of this was the discussion on adequate edge protection and handrails in particular. A number of key concerns from both sides of the floor were brought up and the FIA will investigate further and look to provide further information and guidelines to members in the New Year on the way forward and a consistent message of advice.

Slide from Steve Maher's presentation

The event was hosted by new FIA Partner HLB Mann Judd and the FIA would like to thank them for providing such a great venue and a supportive team to look after the FIA members. They of course had the ideal backdrop for our first education series with FIA member Lendlease's site at Barangaroo.

Social Series

A week earlier we had our first Social Series event hosted by FIA Partner Dincel. We had a great morning at Dincel with owner Burak giving the FIA audience a very informative, passionate and educative presentation on the Dincel system and how it not only improved site safety but also helped reduce costs on sites to the advantage of formwork companies.

We then broke into three groups for further and closer product demonstration, a workshop tour and a session on how Dincel work with you on pricing and ordering.

   

We received a lot of positive feedback and will be looking into hosting another one of these mornings in 2019.

Look out for our upcoming events in 2019 starting in February where we have and education event on "removing the confusion on SWMS" and a social series event from FIA Partner Doka.