OHSIG Conference - 2008

Post Conference report.

By Paul Jarvie, OHSIG Chairperson

The inaugural OHSIG conference 2008.

Well it came and went, but what a ride to get there. The 2008 inaugural OHSIG conference held at the Aotea Centre Sept 11/ 12 was a huge success with around 500 attendees.

What is OHSIG and why the conference?

The “OHSIG” stands for the Occupational Health and Safety Industry Group. The group consists of 11 stakeholder groups. These groups are Associations working in or around occupational health and safety. The groups are all membership associations within NZ and have members working within that sector. It is estimated that the total membership working under the combined umbrella of OHSIG is around 2500. This number can be thought of as the “provider network” i.e. it is these people that are out there daily providing products and services to NZ business, employers and employees.

It occurred to me some time ago that the groups were up and running and active but had no real voice and were not visible. How to pull the groups together? It was apparent right from the start that the groups all had autonomy and wanted to remain independent. This was correct and desired. I thought of a forum concept but that quickly moved to an industry sector concept. OHSIG is then the forum and industry voice of the OH&S provider network. For the first time OH&S had a single body, a point of contact and could be used as the conduit between government and the providers. OHSIG was born. At first we had 3 stakeholder groups that initially signed the MOU in 2005. This small group wrote the constitution and policies and procedures. In 2008 the OHSIG became an Incorporated Society.

Another 8 groups have joined OHSIG since 2005 with another 3-4 possible invitees being considered.

How could we launch OHSIG? The OHSIG had written a number of submissions on pending legislation and Codes of Practice but this wouldn’t particularly raise the profile so the committee agreed to organise and run a conference. When researching the concept of a joint multi streamed, multi disciplined event it became apparent that we were doing a worlds first. No other country had such a body nor organised such a multi disciplined event, and we thought why not. The OHSIG conference was born. We engaged a conference organiser who had to learn all about OH&S and how it worked but also how it didn’t work. She did a marvellous job for us.

The OHSIG committee approved a conference committee who then created sub groups. Each subgroup was in charge of one particular facet of the conference. Overall the groups worked well. The hardest group was the programme committee. Trying to locate and review over 60 speakers was a huge and never ending process. Still it finally finished and the programme went public. The stress time now really begins. We had signed agreements with venues, bands, caterers, banks etc and now needed delegates and sponsors.

The sponsor turnout for the event was fantastic with late comers begging for space. A big vote of thanks to our sponsors who also believed in the vision and without them such events would not be possible.

The tally of delegates began to rise ever inching closer to the breakeven point. Finally we made it; we were technically in the black. The event had morning plenary speakers, while the afternoons were streamed with 6 venues and 48 topics to choose from: a real headache for some. The speakers were from all over the world including Canada, Australia, plus others From NZ we had a wide variety of speakers from the stakeholder groups. The range of topics and subjects was vast and interesting. Many of the groups were unaware of the extent and scope of the OH&S industry sector. We had many comments from delegates who attended different topics that they would not normally attend or have the opportunity to attend. This is what the conference was all about.

No conference is complete without its social functions/networking opportunities. The OHSIG conference dinner was superb. We had abseiling from Newmont Mines, 3m award presentations plus the Town Hall itself, this all followed by a get up and go band. A good night had by all.

OHSIG was launched and the conference was a hit. There will be other OHSIG conferences in the future and more mini events during the year. Each of the stakeholder groups gave very positive feedback and I am sure will participate in the coming events.

What did we achieve? For the first time 11 stakeholder groups were at one event networking with each other and understanding the opportunities for a collaborative approach to injury and ill health prevention in the future. If that was the only thing achieved it was worth it. A lot more was achieved and will flow on in the coming months. See ohsig.org.nz

Chairperson. Paul Jarvie for and behalf of the committee.

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