James Wood will be presenting at the National Safety Council of Australia's Safety Connect Series on the 11th September 2008. James will be speaking about the importance of choices. For more information please see the Speaking Engagements secion.

For those of you who check the site regularly, will know I have been busy over the last few months. As a matter of interest I have been to every state in Australia apart from Tasmania and the NT. But I am more than happy to travel if you would like me to share my safety message with your organisation. I know - blatant plug!!

As I have traversed the country I see a wide variety of people, places and things. And as you can imagine, planes, hotels and hire cars have been a big part of my travels and whilst you might think that all of these things are the same, you would be surprised how different they can be.

For instance hiring a car and driving in Sydney, Melbourne or Perth can be totally different than hiring a car in Port Hedland and driving towards the Pilbara! The environment is totally different and therefore you have to adjust the way you drive and think.

My point here is that it is easy to get yourself into trouble if you don’t take the time to think about how these things can change.

If you drive in the city the same way you do in the country there is a greater chance that you will get hurt.

Where we work can be the same, we might become complacent thinking we have done the same job in the same place many times before, but all it takes is for one thing to change and we can get caught out and something can go wrong.

Take the time to think about what you are doing, look for little changes, and make sure you act on those changes.

I have been in Mudgee this week, working with a mine site here, it has been good to work with a site where the attitude towards safety is so positive, management on site are supporting this by including employees in their safety journey, allowing them to take part in many safety initiatives! And it seems to be working well..... Keep it up guys!

I just wanted to let you know that I have set myself a health & fitness goal. In October this year I want to complete the round the bay in a day challenge. For those of you who don't know the race, it's a 200km+ bike ride around Melbourne. As you can imagine, my bike is not a traditional one, but a hand cycle, so I have to be very fit to use it.

I am currently trying to juggle work, family & training! Of course I will keep you posted as to how it's all going. One of the companies I do some work for is sponsoring me, thanks guys. If you want to get involved, let me know via the contact form and I will let you know more details as soon as it is announced.

I’m also using the website MotivateMe! for ways to overcome the procrasination habit. As you can imagine it has tips & information on how to stay focused - which I need from time to time. If this is something you also need help with, go to http://www.motivateme.info

James

17^th to the 25^th April - Central Qld with Leighton Mining

28^th April - Sydney, NSW

30^th April & 1^st May - Fremantle, WA

5^th to the 9^th May - Mudgee, NSW

12^th to the 14^th May - Kalgoorlie, WA

15^th May - Brisbane, Qld

10th - 11th June - Fremantle, WA 

This is a very busy time for me as you can see from the above dates. But if you are in any of the areas listed and would like to contact me to see if I can add a visit to your organisation, I would be delighted to hear from you. Until then - "see and be safe".

Over the last couple of weeks I have been on the road doing some work for Leighton Mining. As you can imagine, Leighton has a number of sites, and I have been asked to visit each one to pass on my own brand of safety message. Before I go on, I would just like to say thanks to everyone who have made my trips to site worth the drive, it is a pleasure to meet everyone and to share my story.

Whilst you may think that tiredness would be biggest factor in driving long distances, the biggest issue for me is the actual sitting behind the wheel of a car. Which may seem like a rather strange thing to say coming from someone who has to sit down all day, every day. As you know your body needs to circulate blood in order to function properly. Get it wrong and you can feel the "pins and needles". For someone like me who struggles to move "normally" I need to ensure that when I drive for long distances I build in some safe guards so that I can help keep my blood moving. And the way that I do that is by using an alarm I have on my watch.  I set it to go off every two hours and when it does I find a safe place & then stop & get out of the car.

As you can imagine, sometimes the temptation to "Push on" is there, but I know how dangerous that can be, after all we do know that tiredness can kill.

Thankfully the variety of terrain & the change of scenery has been stimulating, which has helped. But it did make me think about how much more tiring it would be if the scenery was the same minute after minute, hour after hour or even day after day!

So I am asking you to think about what you do when you get tired, is it really worth getting there 5 minutes earlier?

I'd say not.

So build in your own safe guards when you are travelling long distances. It might be a pain in the butt, but it saves having one.

James