The membership renewal document posted to IOSH members this year includes a page about IOSH which states among other things that IOSH has over 40,000 members and is the world's largest health & safety organisation. Under the catchy page heading "staying at the top" is an interesting photo evidently showing someone with a full body harness and clipped to the top of a large wind turbine mast. Lying near the access hatch is what might be a grease or mastic gun with a flexible hose attachment. As most of us in IOSH know little about wind turbines, please can any suitably knowledgeable persons advise what the person might be doing on top of the mast, possibly regarding the axle for the turbine blades? Also, the photo background includes a mountain which looks vaguely familiar and might be somewhere in Scotland. Does anyone happen to know where the photo was taken? i.e. the geographical location, not "on top of a wind turbine mast". However, this latter aspect poses another question: Was the photo taken by another person on top of the mast or with a permanent or temporary camera set to record automatically? If there was another person operating the camera, did he/she use the same access hatch as the person shown in the photo? If so, there's no sign of a rail or wire for the photographer to use with a harness!

Sorry but I think the photographer was on one of those big round trampolines by the side of the big 'windmill' and had to keep jumping up and try and get the angle just right whilst dodging the spinning blades - as you can see from the photo he did after about the seventy third attempt; although I did hear that he lost and ear and part of his left little finger in a near miss as he miss-timed one bounce.

David - Before posting this topic I did try searching the IOSH website for the photo but without success. Perhaps the IOSH membership dept may be able to help in this respect. Also, your recycling of your membership document suggests that you've been more diligent than some of us by renewing your membership well before the deadline of 1st April. Another thought arising from the photo is that the enormous blade to the right of the person appears to show numerous bolts securing the blade to the turbine axle: Does anyone know if the tightness of such bolts has to be checked from time to time and with what sort of frequency?!

I work in this industry and if I could find the photo I could probably help with your questions. I am on the website and can't seem lolocate it.

Jay - thanks for the information about the photo's inclusion (near the end) of last year's IOSH annual report. Also, thanks to bob youel and stuie for their wacky but slightly over-imaginative suggestions about aliens or extreme trampolinists having taken the photo! Another possibility is that the photo could have been taken with the aid of a high-quality telephoto camera by someone safely secured to the top of another turbine structure nearby. To avoid any misunderstanding, I am curious about what sort of work the person depicted in the photo could be doing, but not trying to insinuate that the photo was taken by someone working unsafely. Considering the design and massive size of some wind turbines structures, I imagine that their operators and contractors will be strict about safe means of access and methods of work.

Nickh - Sorry about my incorrect assumption that all membership renewals were due by 1st April. It makes far more sense for the Membership Dept to be able to process renewals from over 40,000 members spread out throughout the year. Anyhow, you've got something to look forward, especially as the photo in last year's Annual Report (p31) was monochrome (techspeak for black & white) and a laterally truncated (trimmed both sides) version of the colour photo on this year's renewal document! :-)