29 September 2008

Health and Safety at the World Conker Chamionships

The World Conker Championships has found a possibly unlikely sponsor - a health and safety organisation. According to the BBC the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health is backing the event in a bid to lose its spoilsport image.

The event, held annually in Ashton, Northamptonshire, has been organised by the village's conker club since 1965. About 500 entrants from Jamaica, the US, Brazil, the Philippines, Benin and mainland Europe are among those due to compete to be crowned conker champion. The health and safety organisation is also entering a team in the event, held on 12 October.

It says the suggestion they asked children to wear goggles when playing conkers was a myth. IOSH president Ray Hurst said: "We do not, and never have, required children to wear goggles to play conkers. Health and safety doesn't require goggles at conker matches, and it doesn't ban goggles from swimming pools," he added.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) website says that it was a headteacher that suggested children should wear goggles to play conkers; other schools then banned the game on health and safety grounds. The HSE said the safety risk from playing conkers was "incredibly low and not worth bothering about".

Mr Hurst added: "I'm looking forward to captaining my team to glory at the championships to show that health and safety people are not spoilsports. You just have to manage the risks, not ban them into oblivion."

7 comments:

CherryPie said...

Well thanks for clearing that up!

jams o donnell said...

There you have it Cherie!

jmb said...

As one who spent 9 years on my hospital safety committee, I see danger in everything. I'm sure these Occupational Health and safety guys do too, it's their job, so even if they were not suggesting it I'm sure they were thinking of it.

jams o donnell said...

I can imagine jmb!

James Higham said...

Health and safety conkers - you wouldn't read about it ... but as I obviously just did, what can we say?

jams o donnell said...

You read it here first James!

health and safety said...

nice post. thanks for sharing. keep it up.