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We can celebrate many things in our lives. We all have significant events or personal achievements that we want to mark as being special and worthy of recognition. We celebrate many anniversaries, including our own birthdays, weddings, the years since certain people have been born or died, or on the dates of significant events. If we are lucky, we might also get a public holiday. These milestones are all based on the passage of time, and the date that these events originally occurred. The Safety Charter ten-year anniversary is one of these events.
But time is a funny thing. It is a measurement based on the natural cycles of our planet. The rotation on its axis and its journey around a star. In this regard, time bears no relation to the actual events that we are celebrating, other than marking where the planet was and where it is now.
I think what I am trying to say is that the ten-year anniversary of the Safety Charter is not the important thing that we should be celebrating. The important thing is the people and the achievements of the Charter over this time. The biggest learning, I have received during my time at the Charter is that health and safety at its core is a human activity. It is people caring about people, not people caring and policies and paperwork.
The people of the Safety Charter, which includes all the membership, the original steering groups, the committees, and the Charter Board and staff, all have all contributed to its success, and are all deserving of recognition. The Safety Charter connected people together, gave them a common mission, and enabled people to improve their lives. The biggest success was that no lives were lost on site during the demolition and rebuild, which was a remarkable achievement given the record of the industry at the time. But this success was built on a foundation of a thousand smaller steps, conversations, and changes in practice.
We have the opportunity to connect all the people of the Safety Charter once again, and you are all warmly invited to attend. The Safety Charter 10-year celebration dinner will feature stories about the early days and celebrate the people who were involved. We will recognize the commitment of the first signatories to the Charter and hear how various challenges were overcome.
If you would like to join in the celebration, tickets for the dinner are still available. I can only urge you to come and share in the success.
It’s about time…
Paul Duggan, General Manager
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