 |
Graham Ellicott is chief executive of the Fire Industry Association |
Does this scenario bring anything to mind – the whir, whir, whir of helicopter blades as planes fly in formation above? ‘Apocalypse Now’ or ‘The Deer Hunter’ I hear you say!
Well no, that’s not it, so add to it the intrepid reporter dressed to blend in with the rest of the personnel as they dodge the down draft of blades as the vapour trails from the planes cloud their vision as they home in on the main story. Kate Adie in the first Gulf War or perhaps John Simpson in a burkha in Afghanistan? No wrong again!
Add to that, then, the handheld camcorder and the tough questioning by the reporter of the Government Appointee – Jeremy Paxman asking Michael Howard the same question twelve times perhaps? Sorry not in the same league!
No, I have to tell you that I refer to none other than Ron Alalouff of Info4fire.com who, while under the downdraft of the Agusta rotor blades and the vapour trails from the Aeroworks Extra 300 LP aircraft, carried out a gruelling round of interviews at the Fire Industry Association’s Annual Conference at Sywell Aerodrome.
A great day was had by all at Sywell, with presentations including those on fire investigations, Fire Safety Order prosecutions, the Services Directive, watermist, visual alarm devices, apprentices, and the joint venture between the Institution of Fire Engineers and the FIA on a new route by which engineers working for FIA companies can gain Eng. Tech. membership of the IFE.
During the lunch break while the Blades Aerobatics team got ready to fly, it was all the FIA could do to restrain Ron from begging them to allow him to fill the wing walking slot which was to end in a stall turn of such ferocity that even Adie, Paxman and Simpson had refused to volunteer!
Once airborne, the Blades carried out a short display of death defying flying which brought gasps from the crowd and from Ron exclaiming “I should have been up there with them!”
It’s going to be difficult to for the FIA to top the Sywell experience. We are looking for a new venue with crowd appeal and one at which the representatives from the fourth estate can further test their mettle. So far we are considering the Tracy Island Conference Centre with the lunch attraction expected to be a flypast of Thunderbird 2 with Virgil Tracy at the helm. International Rescue has requested a stuntman body double for Virgil. Ron?
As for me, I’ve accepted the role as body double for Parker, so watch out Lady Penelope!
Now who’s the weakest link? (24.3.10)
Do we all take ourselves too seriously? I ask as recently I heard myself banging on at a seminar about the benefits of properly designed, installed and maintained fire protection systems. And as I continued the listeners were beginning to visibly wilt and glaze over as I pontificated on something that I found important and interesting. In the big scheme of things it was not as obviously fascinating to them as it was to me.
I wonder whether in future, when I get invited to speak or participate in an ‘expert panel’, I should try and mentally visualise the guy we all know as ‘the boring old fart’! I must fight against becoming one of these or if that’s not possible, throw in the towel now before many more people discern my decline (alright, some say I’m already there) towards that end.
I’m also intending to hand out score cards so that the audience can hold up marks for ‘Technical Merit’ and ‘Presentation’ with ‘6’ being the top grade. If I drop below 4 on TM then it’s time to walk away, and if P falls lower than 5 then it’s obviously time to get the hair and eyebrows trimmed again.
And of course if I hand out score cards then I expect to receive something similar about other speakers – perhaps the ability to vote them off as the weakest link? Picture the scene:
Anne Robinson: “So Graham what do you do?”
Me: “Well Anne, I’m with the Fire Industry Association and we are…”
Anne Robinson interrupts: “Well Graham, if I were you I’d ‘fire’ your hairdresser having seen your haircut, but tell me who’s the weakest link and why?”
Me “It’s [name withheld]) because their comments to all and sundry have been the same at the last 85 events that I’ve had the ‘pleasure’ to attend, and I can’t stand it anymore and more importantly neither can anybody else, and it’s getting us all a bad name.”
Anne R. then cuts to the other speakers. In answer to her most famous question they, to a man and woman, vote for me as the weakest link citing my eyebrows, poor haircut and general ability to induce a comatose reaction from the audience.
Anne then returns to me and utters the iconic phrase “Graham you are the weakest link Goodbye”.
So there we have the verdict. But delivering the same message over and over again can be successful as, of course, there may always be some people out there that have not heard it!
Weakest link I may be but having recently had the eyebrows trimmed and hair cut at least I don’t look like an old fart, do I?
No taxation for aliens? (24.02.10)
Well it’s been a strange couple of weeks with regard to working with other fire related bodies.
Many years ago I ran a fire protection business in Houston, Texas that supplied systems to the petrochemical and offshore industries, many of which were installed by Resident Aliens (RAs). Indeed I was an RA myself – great name eh? like something out of ET – although I can assure that I don’t yet have a bike that flies! RAs have the right to reside and work in the USA but don’t get a vote.
One day a bunch of fellow RAs showed up in the warehouse and tried to buy material without the sales tax, quoting the talismanic saying from the US Revolution by the Bostonian Jonathan Mayhew – "No Taxation Without Representation!" Having disabused them of the notion that we could sell product without sales tax they duly paid up and went on their way, but it got me thinking of whether they had a point?
The talismanic saying raised itself to the higher levels of my consciousness late last week when I discussed with one of our board members an e-mail that I had recently received from the Chair of a fire-related ‘quango’. This informed me that my “kind offer” of supplying a representative to give a view from the fire trade wasn’t welcome as “the current membership is adequate”. The thing that really made me laugh was that the board member in question mentioned that the quango had recently contacted his company asking for some financial support!
So my message to all companies in the fire trade is: Don’t support any quangos without proper representation and if you do and don’t get it, then remember 1776, storm their premises and chuck all their Typhoo into the harbour!
But on to more encouraging news of collaboration with other parts of the fire world, namely a coming together of the FIA with the sprinkler gang (aka BAFSA) and both Hants and Dorset Fire and Rescue to put on a well received free fire seminar for the hotels and guest house sector (I’d thought of asking the aforementioned quango for support money but suspected that the irony of the situation might have been lost on them). This success confirmed my view that trade associations are at their best when they get out to the grass roots and work with them. I’d rather do this any day that sit in yet another darkened room focusing on government targets and working with other relevant government departments and related organisations to help shape and join up the agenda.
Now off down to Halfords to see if the flying bikes have arrived.
A pile-up of egos (11.02.10)
Working for a trade association can be one long round of meetings and many people think that these can be mind blowingly boring – but that is far from the truth!
Take last Monday when I dragged my weary frame out of bed at some unearthly hour to drive 180 miles to a gathering of the great and the good. My house lies three miles from the motorway and in that short distance there were four cars off the road – one on its side, an Audi, with its red bonnet caressing a tree, and two others that skidded of the road into the adjacent ditch. The perils of black ice plus middle aged boy racers in cars that are as big as their egos, perhaps?
Having negotiated my way around the carnage I got to the meeting venue and participated in the usual round of give and take. But then bingo! the brown stuff hit the fan and people were accusing one another of not being as good as their word plus the usual trade association bragging that we have more members than you do, so you can’t have a valid view…I guess this is more ego on view, as we all know that size isn’t everything!
An hour later and this was still going on. I was beginning to lose the will to live especially with two participants who continually found fault with everything, so I mentally switched off and started to answer e-mail via the local wireless connection. Pretty rude I know, but hey why change the habits of a lifetime!
Meeting over and back in the car I wondered why I had bothered. I then concluded that it’s now 30 years since I entered the fire industry and in that time – in general – the UK has become a safer place when fire is considered.
That said, meeting participants have not changed and neither have the size of their egos, but I didn’t check the car park to see if any of them had red Audis…
Download the Fire Safety in 2023 eBook, keeping you up to date with the biggest news and prosecution stories from around the industry. Chapters include important updates such as the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 and an overview of the new British Standard for the digital management of fire safety information.
Plus, we explore the growing risks of lithium-ion battery fires and hear from experts in disability evacuation and social housing.
