Pictures of people taking chances or cutting corners are always a good one. Especially if you can find ones relevant to the type of course you intend to run. What topics are you looking at delivering in particular?

Thanks for feedback. The programme is a two day programme comprising of two written assignments and presentation skills. I have a number of case studies and DVD to show but feel the course is still very theory driven... so any ideas for maing topics such as accident prevention, risk assessment and safety legislation interesting ?? Thanks everyone ....

search "safety humour" on www and prepare to be spoilt for choice.

In my last risk assessment training session I took a packet of custard creams and put them on the table. Instead of doing a 'risk assessment' on a photo I had taken of some dodgy external decorators we did in on the perils of biscuit eating - then decided it was safe enough to eat them. It worked well.

Hi all, Many thanks for suggestions - will get working on this .. I have to be careful that presentation is not death by powerpoint.....

1: Make sure you don't find it boring (this is the most important bit - and is I think what BuzzLightyear was saying) 2: Don't use powerpoint 3: If you must use powerpoint, don't have more than three words on any screen When I do H&S presentations I try very hard not to use powerpoint. When I do use it, it's for pictures only. For example, doing a basic introduction for new staff before they go to site (part of our induction processes), I talk about MEWPs and cherry pickers, and VCBs, and some of the people have gone school - university - here without any exposure to the real world of construction and just don't know what a MEWP is. Three pictures of MEWPs on-screen is better than me describing one. That's the only use for powerpoint in this sort of course, IMO. The last general H&S briefing/update I did, I had 4 slides - a photo of David Cameron, a photo of my granny gurning, a photo of Felicity Kendal, and a photo of a bare-chested chippendale type pretending to be a lumberjack. Most of the time the screen was black. I drew diagrams on a flipchart whenever I wanted to explain visually. If the candidates need checklists and quotations from legislation and reference material, that should be in handouts, not on screen. 90% of 90% of the powerpoint presentations I see is for the benefit of the presenter, not the audience - it's his speaker notes. I hate powerpoint (did you guess)?

Have to ask and it is Friday but what did 4 photos represent - can prob quess Cameron?

"chopper does health and safety" - I am not sure if I can imagine any audience for that, every second word begins with F

There has been a similar discussion in the not to distant past. I can’t really recall ever finding anything boring to teach! While injecting some humour into training is often useful you do need to carefully balance the levity against the message that you’re trying to get across in order to ensure that the training is remembered for the message and not the humour alone. My tips would be: 1. Know your subject. Be engaging. Use humour by all means but don’t lose the message in the levity 2. If possible train in the morning and break it up into ‘bite sized’ sessions. Both of these help to capture and keep the attention. 3. By all means use powerpoint to summarise; but avoid extensive use; it can be totally mind numbing! (Incidentally the Swiss have a political party committed to the eradication of powerpoint presentations!) 4. Try and involve people in the training rather than lecturing them. Get the discussions going and get their brains working. 5. Try to use ‘real life’ examples and/or cases. Personally I am not generally greatly in favour of ‘gory stories’ or similar pictures. 6. Be prepared for the fact that other people have different points of view. They may not necessarily be the same as yours but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are wrong 7. Make it enjoyable and memorable – for the right reasons. Good luck

That's basically the reason. David Cameron: I was actually quoting something he said with approval (bet you didn't expect that) - H&S should be "a thick, intricate web of mutual obligation in which we fulfil our responsibilities to ourselves and each other". I did subsequently make the point that the rest of the speech, and pretty much everything he's said on the topic since, was popularist rabble-rousing tripe. Granny: I'm not here to teach granny to suck eggs, but there's stuff that I need to know that everyone knows, so when I'm on something that you know all about please bear with me - we'll get it over with quickly. I also quote the C4 documentary about H&S - "heard it all before, and not much enjoyed it the first time" to make the same point. Felicity Kendal - sensuous young lady in a bikini for the middle aged. I find getting those over 40 to H&S presentations harder than get the newer employees. Managers (and especially directors) are most likely to find something else more urgent or pressing. However, I think every heterosexual male who is old enough to have seen The Good Life the first time it was broadcast harbours some degree of a crush on Felicity Kendal. In chasing for attendance in advance I promised that Felicity Kendal would be in the presentation. Seriously, it's a hook to set up an obligation to attend. If I just send an email saying 'you must attend this presentation', they don't turn up. If I go and talk to them and say 'Will you be coming, Bob? Felicity Kendal's in it'. He says yes - he has to - he can't admit he plans and intends not to attend a meeting that we all know he should attend. If he's said he's coming, he feels more obligated to attend than if he can pretend he didn't see the email. Also, he wants to see if I really will put Felicity Kendal in a H&S presentation, or maybe it really is the case that he'll do anything for Felicity Kendal. (For various reasons I wanted visible buy-in in that meeting, so I had the same discussion with five key managers, three of them directors, and they all turned up, where otherwise I'd have expected one at most). If the managers and directors attend, the other staff see it as something they might be missed from... Lumberjack - just another break, moment of levity for teh presentation. 'We had dear Felicity to get Bob's pulse racing, so here's one for those that prefer something different'. All those sort of things only work once though. They won't come to another one for Felicity Kendal, so I'll need something else. I find I spend at least as much time thinking up the breaks for levity as the actual factual presentation - after all, the facts is just talking about stuff I know already. I don't need to work out or revise H&S stuff I already know, so I just need some notes about what I want to cover to make sure I don't miss something.

Slightly off-topic, but as some of you seem to have drifted into daydreaming of Felicity Kendal . . note that the comparable Cherie Lunghi played the part of a stern Factory Inspector in the excellent safety video "No Going Back" in the 90's. Some really valid tips in this thread - very useful.

I asked the current Mrs C this question and she immediately gave the name of George Clooney. She added 'For any ladies over 55, try Nigel Havers'.