The educational partner of Health & Safety North 2016, The British Safety Council, has prepared a comprehensive seminar programme for the Health & Safety North 2016 event on October 12 – 13 2016, in Bolton. The event will return to Bolton Arena and this year will include two interactive workshops which will give participants ‘hands on involvement’ in the sessions. Health and Safety North 2016 is a two day event centred on an exhibition that includes a free to attend seminar programme curated by the British Safety Council. It is a chance for leading trade bodies, distributors, manufacturers, training providers and consultants in the health and safety sector to showcase their services and expertise. The British Safety Council’s seminar programme will provide a platform for local business managers and owners in the North West to hear from and engage with leading experts in health and safety and network with a series of business managers and practitioners. The highlight of this year’s programme will be two interactive workshops that will give the delegates experience of managing a stressful situation in ‘real-life’ scenarios where positive health and safety behaviour is required. On October 12, Shaun Curry and Harry Gallagher, from training providers Macnaughton Mcgregor, will host a scenario based session during which participants will be told of a serious incident which has taken place and presented with an ‘active’ scenario that they can take part in. The audience will then be given the chance to question both individuals, influence their behaviour and ultimately change the potential outcome of the situation. In the second interactive workshop, held on the 13th October, Mark Davies, managing director at consultancy 7Futures, will draw on his experience of working with elite performers, sports personalities and the military, by demonstrating how to manage stressful situations without compromising people’s health and wellbeing.

Wood and coal fuel specialist, Logs Direct, has issued a warning of an impending flue epidemic during Chimney Fire Safety Week (September 5 to 11). Logs Direct says that Brits have been overtaken by ‘logmania’ over the last few years and in January 2006 it was reported that the last 12 months had seen a 20% rise in the sale of wood burning stoves, while HETAS reported a 60% increase in the number of wood burners over the last seven year period. The company added that although people are showing a trend towards burning wood, there are far too few homeowners and hospitality providers having to get to grips with how to burn wood. This puts a significant proportion of wood burning homes and establishments at risk of a chimney fire, which affects 5,000 properties in Britain every year. It partly puts this down to an innate desire for British people to be wood seeking hunter gatherers, foraging for wood, raiding skips and most of all buying unseasoned, ‘wet’ logs from timber suppliers and farm gates. Although these may appear dry, the ‘wet’ reference comes from the fact that, on felling, their water content can be as high as 80pc. For a log to burn efficiently, the water content should only be 20pc or lower, which means that logs need to be left to dry, in the right climatic and storage conditions, for as long as two summers and a winter, if they are a hardwood such as oak, beech, hornbeam and sycamore. Even conifers and hard growing broadleaves such as ash, birch and and poplar need to be seasoned for one spring and one summer. This means that anyone buying wood from farm and country suppliers, and wishing to use it immediately, should seek assurance that the wood has been seasoned properly.