Posted By D H Hi Merv - glad to see you are well recovered - throwing snowballs - at your age? at your age? young man! Witnessed a road closure yesterday when a group of kids were throwing snowballs at cars and the young lady driver got such a fright she lost control of the car and she ended up sideways in the middle of the road on the five inches of snow accumulated there. I came from 4 cars behind to see if I could help - no one else went to her aid!! - and found her panicking and spinning her wheels. Spoke to her and lots of tears then ensued. Took her car into the side and parked her up and went to retrieve my own car - to a chorus of horns etc for "abandoning" my car on a "clear road. Responsible and caring fellow motorists?? Parked up beside the woman and she did not recognise me immediately as the person who had 2 minutes before, had driven her car to safety. So - in all that - ban snowballs?? No - but people be prepared - if you are passing kids with snow on the road - please be prepared for it?? We all did it at some time - come on admit it. Dave

Posted By D H Eliza- may I ask why you have sticky up hair??# Is it of fear of snowballs - or the effect of snowballs hitting and freezing? Or something else - anticipation? Electromagnets? Love? Dave

Posted By tinkicker Hi all. I'm a newbie on here with a fairly new NEBOSH General and have just been made Health and Safety Advisor for my company in addition to my other duties. So advice from those more experienced H&S men will be appreciated. Had a snowball incident at work on Thursday. I work for a company specialising in educating young persons who have been kicked out of mainstream education for unreasonable and disruptive behaviour and kicked out of the reception centre to deal with them for the same reason. We are the last chance saloon, so we tend to get the worst of the worst. Thursday, I spotted a group of youths having a snowball fight in the car park. Ok lets move them onto our 9 acres of parkland to play well away from the cars. No problem. I asked a tutor nearby to move them and he replied "we are only playuing snowballs" picked up a lump of icy snow and hurled it at a students head, he missed. I put a stop to it and gave the tutor a rollocking. Although I felt a spoilsport, my concerns were: If the tutor is engaged in the fight, it becomes a company sanctioned activity. If the tutor had the kids eye out and the HSE got involved they would most likely conclude: 1. The tutor was in breach of his duty of care in causing the injury. (£20K fine) 2. The tutor failed to carry out a risk assessment. (£20k fine) 3. The tutor failed to supply appropriate PPE and the student was injured as a result (£20k fine). 4. The company would have to rack up massive legal fees in trying to defend the case (£££££). 5. The company would be wide open for the victim to pursue damages (££££££). 6. Legal fees defending the case (£££££). 7. Doing what we do means that we have a big problem getting public and employee liability insurance. Only one company will insure us and should they have to pay out by what could be seen as dereliction of duty by an employee, then they may decline to re insure when the expiry date arrives. We would then have to close our doors. This new duty is purely voluntary, not getting paid any more dosh for it and as a newbie the responsibility is weighing pretty heavily. Its a case of doing the work for free now and hopefully the company does well and I reap the rewards later. I just want to get it right and help the company grow. So am I been a little anal about it all, or was I justified in giving the rollocking? All comments gratefully received.

Posted By Flic Tinkicker, please see the following: http://www.hse.gov.uk/myth/dec08.htm Flic

Posted By Mike DF In defence of Tinkicker it is not clear what the surface of the car park was. If it is smooth tarmac then let the snowball fight go ahead, no point in standing in the way of spontaneous harmless fun. If the car park is surface with pebbles /stones then move to the park land. Never mind the students, I would not like my car being struck by friendly fire snowballs loaded with pebbles!

Posted By Boh Graham Bullough et al, has the great and spectacular machine of evolution really bore presence to such docile and boring produce. Surely you post in jest? I personally would love to pelt you with snow balls, I may even consider sleet. Are you the guy off that Channel 4 programme who brushes his driveway? The stigma attached to our profession is born straight from your good selves. I for one am happy to see a younger and more sensible culture coming through in the world of risk management, 10 out of 10 to some of the articles in SHP recently on graduates in our profession and their refreshing outlook. A refreshing change to some of the dross that can be found and I commend the editors.

Posted By Philjimman I like this link http://www.hse.gov.uk/myth/dec08.htm Phil

Posted By tinkicker Thanks Merv and the other contributors, your feedback is gratefully received. I accept that I have acted like an anally retentive, jumped up little *rick in this instance and it will not happen again. I was quick to jump in with my opinions on other fora; esp about the school teacher who dressed his pupils up like Star Wars Stormtroopers just to have a game of conkers, yet I too have fallen into the trap, although in my defence, the situation was a little more complicated than acting as an advisor, I will explain: My H&S role is but a minor part of my duties, one of my many other roles is as a middle manager of the company, so the lines are not as clear cut as it would seem, I have an advisory capacity where H&S expenditure and major policy changes at director level are concerned, but also autonomy and authority to address any problems that occur in other areas, departments and with subordinate members of staff. Asking (nicely) for a tutor to stop the students throwing snowballs at staff and customer's cars in the car park and move to an area well away to prevent possible property damage was the primary reason for my intervention ( I am a fully qualified motor vehicle tech with over 20 years experience and have seen many cars damaged by "snowballs" over the years). For him to dismiss my request, pick up a snowball and launch it a student himself was blatent disregard for authority. The tutor has an history of such actions with other managers and is on a final warning for such. This is what I gave him the rollocking for. I used the H&S route as a tool for trying to make him see that every action has consequence and try to instill a need to apply a little forethought before getting into a situation and therefore improve his performance. I am not prepared to give up on him yet as he is actually quite good with the kids, just a little (a lot) daft. My original post was to gain a little feedback as to whether using the H&S route was a valid excuse, what other H&S people with more experience than I thought of the consequences of a member of staff snowballing his pupils and thus gaining a valuable lesson in the process. I received a well deserved mauling and this has reinforced my view that the H&S route was perhaps not the best course of action, but still preferrable to writing a guy on his last warning up for insubordination and entering due process. My management style is generally easy going and friendly, trained in and following the holistic school of thought and to be told I was a bully was a little disconcerting. One thing I am not is a bully. Just trying to do my best and get the balance right. Thanks all for another trouser seat polishing, but invaluable lesson from the University of Hard Knocks and Humble Pie. Kindest regards Mark

Posted By Peter F Tinkicker it ppears that u as a manager have 'snowballs'

Posted By Peter F Don't beat yourself up to much, if we didn't do anything we'd never learn.