The 2018 Health and Safety Training Calendar is now available: https://intranet.canterbury.ac.nz/hs/info-training/index.shtml
This is a good opportunity to plan on becoming a Health and Safety rep: https://intranet.canterbury.ac.nz/hs/info-training/hs-rep.shtml
There may also be First Aid certificate holders who need revalidation.
Registrations are now done online.
Tim O’Sullivan
There will be a session for staff on Thursday 15th February at 11.30 to explain the emergency evacuation procedures for the Puaka-James High Building.
The session will be in two parts.
First (11.30-12.00): practical considerations for evacuating the building. This will be a walk around to think about the building in terms of needing to evacuate in an emergency (not the building in terms of being a library). If you are an existing staff member or established staff member who has moved into the building you are welcome to come along to refresh your memory.
Second (12.00-12.30): Health and Safety introduction for new casual staff.
Please meet in room 203 (Customer Services) at 11.30 on Thursday.
Tim O’Sullivan
The following note has been received from Pat Keogh, University compliance Officer. This is a yearly check required so that the building can be certified safe to occupy. This is usually an un-eventful check but forewarned is forearmed.
Building: Puaka James Hight Library
System: Manual Fire Alarm
Date: 29/01/18
Time: 08.00am to 04.00pm
Parts of Premises Affected: Whole Building
The effect of this shutdown is: The Manual Call Points and Smoke Detectors will not activate the fire sounders or signal the fire service.
The Fire Alarm sounders will operate intermittently during this shutdown.
The fire sprinkler will be operational
This shutdown is to allow Chubb to carry out an annual survey on the building fire system.
In the event of an emergency ring 111 (fire service) and Security (6111) and evacuate the building.
Tim O’Sullivan (on behalf of Pat Keogh)
On Friday at 10.00am I will introduce some of our new staff from Education and AV to the evacuation procedures in the Puaka-James Hight building. This will be a walk around to talk through evacuating the building in an emergency situation.
If there is anyone who has worked here for a while who would like to join the walk around you would be most welcome. Please meet in room 203 (Customer Services workroom at 10.00am). It will last 30 minutes.
I will repeat the session next Wednesday (13th December) at 2.00pm starting in the same place.
Tim O’Sullivan
Do you need reminders to take your micropauses? Help is at hand! Workrave is free software available from the UC list of approved software programmes. Workrave frequently alerts you to take micropauses, and rest breaks, and restricts you to your daily limit. It reminds you to take a few seconds to change your posture, (stretch or relax), change your eye focus, (look off into the distance), relax your hands, have a drink of water, or get up and move. It’s easy to install (see below).
1. Click Start menu -> Software Center
2. Find “Workrave Version 1.10.1” in the list, select it and click Install.
Caroline Anderson
Want to glide through the giddy end of year schedule feeling calm and in control instead of frazzled and frantic? Remembering to breathe correctly could be a good start.
Current research confirms you can relax your brain through your breath. The trick is to breathe through your nose, activating the parasympathetic nervous system – your “rest and digest” response. This causes you to produce happy hormones which decrease your heart rate and blood pressure. (Mouth-breathing, conversely, produces stress hormones which have the opposite effect).
So: inhale deeply through your nose until your lungs are full, expanding the abdomen and ribcage. Exhale through the nose, aiming for a count longer than the inhale. (Exhaling through the nose appears to be more beneficial overall than mouth exhalation).
Now astound your friends, confound your colleagues and cruise your way to Christmas!
The usual milk fridge in the PJH level 5 staff room has been moved to allow it to defrost.
There is so much ice on the icebox that the door of the fridge was not closing properly and this was leading to more ice buildup inside and a fridge that was working far harder to keep the contents cool.
I’ll wash the whole thing out this afternoon but in the meantime the smoko milk is in the other fridge.
Tim O’Sullivan
Remember the exploding figure in the ACC Habit At Work site covered in the Discomfort, Pain and Injury refresher training? One of the 7 contributing factors to DPI is psychosocial factors. This includes stress at work and worries or anxiety outside of work.
So if life is getting a bit edgy, it’s good to know EAP Services is available free of charge for all UC staff (and their immediate family members). You can approach EAP Services directly (voluntary referral) and confidentially. They cover a range of services including stress, workplace issues, grief and loss, career planning through to personal legal advice. More information is here.
Last weeks fire evacuation was the second 2017 trial and it went quite well with and evacuation time of 7minutes 49 seconds. The library was pretty busy at the time.
Thanks to those who picked up paddles and took on the role of floor warden. This is an important part of the evacuation procedure. Any information the floor wardens pass to the building warden will be handed to the Fire Service in the event of an emergency.
Once the floor wardens have checked off their floor their duties continue at the front steps. Even though the alarm may be turned off the building is not released back to the University until the Fire Brigade give the all clear. This will be relayed around to the front of the building to the floor wardens at the foot of the library steps.
If you are wearing the armband and are holding a paddle you will look official enough to dissuade students from reentering until the all clear is received.
Tim O’Sullivan
The UC Health and Safety Flip chart has been revised and in public areas the old one has been replaced by the new one.
If you would like a new one for your office area please email jacqui.lyttle@canterbury.ac.nz
The new tab for power outage includes the information that the Skype phones will not work in a blackout. There have been emergency phones installed around campus and the one for the PJH library is on the pillar behind the photocopier.
Other revisions are the tab for armed incident and the tab for Weather Event
Tim O’Sullivan