Safety Procedures



From: Brett Davis

To: info@shoalhavenbushwalkers.com

Subject: Safety Procedures

Date sent: Jan 31, 2025


Hi SBW committee,

I read the club's many and varied safety procedures when the new website was created, and read them again recently. I have some suggestions that could make the reading of the safety procedures much easier for all club members.

You might remember that I made a complaint last year against John Kubale, Greg Smith and Andy Winfield who had exceeded the terms under which the Safety Sub-committee (comprised of the three of them) was established, and had therefore been unaware of, had misunderstood or had deliberately ignored Rule 24 (a) of the SBW constitution. Rule 24 (a) says "A Sub-committee shall deal with matters of a special nature and shall be confined to the terms under which the Sub-committee is established."

At the October 2023 committee meeting, where Greg was supposed to “present a refined document”, President John Kubale thanked Greg and Andy for their comprehensive safety and risk documentation. Under General Business item 1 it says that Greg gave a short presentation involving a risk assessment, three new procedures, three updated procedures and ten new Guidance / Information documents. The safety sub-committee should not have produced "comprehensive safety and risk documentation". Instead of what the committee asked for - a simplification of a four page document - the committee received a large number of additional documents.

Even though I withdrew the complaint, it was still justified, and a committee with a bit more integrity might have followed through on the complaint despite its withdrawal. Anyway, after the entire illegal process to produce the safety procedures was finalized, the committee approved the new safety procedures and it looks like we are stuck with them.

On the website's Safety Information page there are 15 PDFs listed under Safety Policies and Procedures, and another 15 PDFs listed under Safety Information & Guidelines. None of these documents has a date or a version number or any similar way to work out how recently they were written or updated.

Can I suggest that all of the safety documentation be put into ONE PDF document so that if members want to display and read all the safety procedures it could be done with ONE click on ONE document rather than 30 clicks on 30 documents? Can I also suggest that each procedure, policy or guideline be date-stamped so it is easy to check whether it has been updated recently? Can I further suggest - and I suspect that this is done anyhow - that every time a change or addition is made to a safety procedure, it is club policy to put information about it on the club's News page?

Regards,
Brett



































This page shows one of the 35 suggestions to improve the club and its procedures sent by the Shoalhaven Bushwalkers webmaster to the SBW committee in 2025. The Shoalhaven Bushwalkers webmaster would have his membership cancelled for sending in these suggestions, although the real reason was probably because of two disputes he raised with the Shoalhaven Bushwalkers committee which they seemingly did not want to deal with. The cancellation of the webmaster's membership was arguably illegal under NSW law and could lead to the club being taken to court.




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