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National Safety Video

Started by Duke Dillio, May 05, 2008, 03:00:50 PM

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Duke Dillio

Don't know if anyone watched or noticed...

Our national safety officer was wearing two leadership ribbons...

Pylon

I can't get the video to work.  I've tried several times, on both a Mac and a PC.   :P
Michael F. Kieloch, Maj, CAP

mikeylikey

Quote from: Pylon on May 05, 2008, 03:35:24 PM
I can't get the video to work.  I've tried several times, on both a Mac and a PC.   :P

Same here......Don't get hurt Mike!   ;D
What's up monkeys?

Pylon

Quote from: mikeylikey on May 05, 2008, 03:48:02 PM
Same here......Don't get hurt Mike!   ;D

Well, everybody knows I bend over backwards for "Safetieness"   8)
Michael F. Kieloch, Maj, CAP

notaNCO forever

I can never get on line CAP videos to work. :(

0

Is there a link to the video still? 

1st Lt Ricky Walsh, CAP
Boston Cadet Squadron
NER-MA002 SE, AEO & ESO

Duke Dillio

I just went to capchannel.com and clicked on the link that was on the first page I came to.  Don't know why the video isn't working for you guys...

flyguy06

And so, the only thing you got from the video was the National Safety Officer was wearing two leadership ribbons?  ???

I think the important thing is was the video quality and useful?

Duke Dillio

Sooo.....

The video quality is really rather poor.  It would have almost been better to simply record the audio and submit that way.  As for the content, it's really nothing that I haven't heard before.  Safety has always been the priority in Civil Air Patrol.  They did not add anything new or exciting about our safety program.  They didn't announce any changes, and I still haven't seen an ORM form yet.  I'd also mention that all three officers look very awkward in the video.

jimmydeanno

I'd love to watch this right now, but WMP seems to want to take over my second monitor and display as though it is a projector and I can't for the life of me figure out how to make it stop.  If anyone has any hints - please PM me.

My general thoughts are that if safety is that important perhaps it should be something that is included in the level 1 for all officers.  We talk all day about creating a culture of safety and getting people on board with it but don't have any "requirements/training" other than the RST or when something bad goes down. (other than forms).

Creating a culture begins at the beginning - getting the organizational climate to change is better done at the beginning than half-way through.  You even see it in the corporate environment.  The people coming on board don't have to change or modify their behaviors because it's that way from the beginning.
If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law. - Winston Churchill

Duke Dillio

You know, I live the culture every day.  I work at a power plant and we don't do anything without a tailboard (briefing) and a risk management profile.  We have a form that we fill out which lists any potential hazards that we may expect while completing a certain job and a list of ways to mitigate or eliminate those risks.  We don't work on any equipment unless there is a lockout/tag out in place.  If the course of the job changes at any time, we stop, retailboard, reprofile the risks, and then continue on.  We have a regular safety committee which meets monthly to discuss any potential issues and come up with new ways to make our work safer.

That having been said, there is a little bit of a gap between working with high pressure steam and high voltage electricity versus what you would normally see in CAP however the theme is the same.  Safety is priority #1.  I try to bring this sort of attitude with me whereever I go.  To me, the more you do it, the better the habit.  Safety should be a habit.  It should just be a natural thing.  I haven't really met anyone in CAP who does outlandish things that could violate our safety culture.  If there were any, I'm sure they were run out pretty quickly.  Anyone know anybody in CAP who's come close to becoming a Darwin Award winner?

Pylon

Oh, but our squadron is so safe because we have to file quarterly safety reports, complete an annual safety survey, log attendance at monthly safety meetings and track who has attended safety down days.

Mind you, the aviation industries whose people fly full-time don't put this much safety paperwork on their personnel.  But CAP is super safe because the bean-counters can say "Look! 100% compliance with the latest safety reminder!"  Plenty of other industries that require a high level of actual safety (note the post above) whose people perform their work full-time, every day have less safety administrivia to go through. 

And those monthly safety briefings?  Well, higher headquarters will and does threaten to shut you down if you don't log them, track attendance and report on them every quarter.  But do they care what you briefed or the quality of the briefing?  Nope.  Each month you could brief on Q-tip safety to the pilots, and safe nuclear reactor shut-down procedures to the cadets and higher headquarters will be happy.  Because the bean-counters can wave their (in all actuality, very meaningless and empty) reports about our safety program and say "Look!  We've got safetieness!"

And what is that video going to demonstrate to us?  That our national leaders will go through the same empty motions for the appearance of safetieness.  In fact, that video doesn't give us any new tips or ideas on remaining safe; it doesn't tell us anything about CAP's safety program that wasn't already known; it didn't address a critical issue.  It announced a new mandatory form (I'll address this later), which doesn't apparently exist yet.  Other than creating yet more administrative procedures and work, the video simply reminded us to be safe. 

Gen Courter (and I really do love her leadership) noted in the NEC meeting on Saturday that only 900 people and change had viewed the new national safety video by that point, while 9,500 were watching the NEC stream.  She encouraged more people to watch the video.  Again... bean-counting.  That video probably isn't going to stop the pilot who skips the pre-flight or the cadet who runs across the gravel parking lot, or even make them think twice.

Our national safety program consists of briefings on any topic imaginable to our members implemented at and by the local level each month.  Wow.  How profound.  Sure, we provide some suggested material in the form of a "newsletter" and safety officer briefing books.  But safety officers can and do ramble on for hours about people with glass eyes, or anecdotal stories about retired drug-sniffing dogs and lawn mower safety.  Cute.  And very effective, I'm sure, too... if we're worried about our members hurting themselves on their own time in their homes.

At the local level, where the safety officer should be able to affect the culture and truly provide tips and ideas to do things in a safe environment - the safety officers are instead spending the vast majority of their time tracking attendance, generating quarterly reports on that attendance, filling out safety surveys, keeping up with safety down days, keeping track of members who have missed which safety down days, and all sorts of administrivia.   The new national safety video has now announced a new mandatory safety ORM form which will be joining the ranks of these other dozen reports and forms.   What does higher headquarters even do which all that vast amount of reporting?

So when you look at how the safety program is actually being implemented, and what the local safety officers have to spend their time doing, you see what the true focus is -- administrativa, which generates great looking statistics and figures at the higher headquarters level.  "Hey look!  53,000 people attended safety briefings in July!  98% of our members briefed on safety down day in October!  We're serious about safety!  We're doing a lot to make us safetiefied!"

For part-time volunteers, many of whom are in a CAP building or structure less than 2 hours a week, this level of safety administrative requirements is completely obnoxious.  Even for aircrew who fly CAP aircraft a few times a month for a couple of hours (which would be on the active end of the spectrum for our volunteers), regular reminders pertinent to aviation and some continuing ed requirements maybe once a quarter using materials actually from the real aviation safety industry would be more useful to our pilots than briefings on lawn mower safety, fireworks handling procedures, and how cute old ladies got their glass eyes.

Unfortunately, criticizing how we implement our safety program and sharing ideas on how we could probably be doing a much better job creating a true culture of safety (instead of creating a mountain of administrative work and paper) usually gets one labeled as being "against safety!".   Sounds a bit scary, doesn't it?
Michael F. Kieloch, Maj, CAP

cnitas

You sound like you are against safety.  >:D

Mark A. Piersall, Lt Col, CAP
Frederick Composite Squadron
MER-MD-003

notaNCO forever

 I have to agree with Pylon on CAP's safety briefing. They don't even care who does them, you can have a cadet airmen do one and they wouldn't even care.

mikeylikey

Quote from: NCO forever on May 06, 2008, 04:40:53 PM
I have to agree with Pylon on CAP's safety briefing. They don't even care who does them, you can have a cadet airmen do one and they wouldn't even care.

so true.  For PAWG's ORM requirements by USAF, I know of a few SQD's that had a Cadet read the material to the entire SQD, then break off into discussions on safety issues.  Cadets are absolutely capable of doing a safety briefing if they are instructed how to before they actually do it. 

What's up monkeys?

Duke Dillio

I would actually encourage the cadets to do safety briefings however you need to give them time to do some research on the topic they will present.  I'd then have them present it to one of the officers before they give it to the squadron.  This way, they get experience doing research, presenting in front of the squadron, they learn something new, and they gain some confidence.  Good mentoring tool I would think.  Just my opinion though.

0

Quote from: sargrunt on May 07, 2008, 12:27:11 AM
I would actually encourage the cadets to do safety briefings however you need to give them time to do some research on the topic they will present.  I'd then have them present it to one of the officers before they give it to the squadron.  This way, they get experience doing research, presenting in front of the squadron, they learn something new, and they gain some confidence.  Good mentoring tool I would think.  Just my opinion though.

I've tried this twice.  The first time it went ok, the second time we had a little SNAFU with it.    The way I did it I gave the cadet about a month and a half notice.  By one month out they had to give me a topic for my aprroval.  Then they had to start to get stuff together over the next two weeks.  Two weeks out they had to give me a mini brief so I could see where they're at.  I would give them feed back as to what to change then one week out they had to give me one last brief so I could tell they had it right. 

1st Lt Ricky Walsh, CAP
Boston Cadet Squadron
NER-MA002 SE, AEO & ESO

Eeyore

Why are all NHQ videos of such poor quality?

*Slightly off topic* It would be great to use some of the videos for recruiting, schools, etc. but the quality is so shoddy that you can't view it on full screen without it looking like it was drawn with crayons.

I can understand why streaming videos would be of lower quality; but at least make larger, better quality versions available to us for download.

Pylon

Showed the cadets the safety video tonight.  As soon as I got it up on the projector, and the speakers working, I stepped out onto the flight line to watch a nice Learjet taxi by and take off.  Right as the jet took off, the video stopped and I stepped back into the classroom.  Perfect timing.   ;D
Michael F. Kieloch, Maj, CAP

Duke Dillio

Quote from: Pylon on May 08, 2008, 04:10:25 AM
Showed the cadets the safety video tonight.  As soon as I got it up on the projector, and the speakers working, I stepped out onto the flight line to watch a nice Learjet taxi by and take off.  Right as the jet took off, the video stopped and I stepped back into the classroom.  Perfect timing.   ;D

And you weren't with the cute women on the Learjet?  Gotta question that one.....

As for the safety culture thing, I would simply say it takes a lot more than a piece of paper and a weak, poorly shot video to form a culture of safety.  It takes everyone in the organization accepting and "buying into" the program.  In the time that I have been in CAP, I have never had anyone in any of the units I have been with get injured.  I would think that this is a great accomplishment.  I have seen the "dark side" of a safety culture, that being in the Army.  A soldier from my platoon was killed by lightning strike because of a decision that failed.  Three other soldiers were injured and each of them was out of the Army within 6 months of the incident.  It is my opinion that there is nothing more important than coming home safely.  I hope everyone in this organization feels the same way that I do.