Welcome to the Charities Safety Group website.

I have had the privilege of chairing the CSG for the last 12 months. The year has been a busy and exciting time. We have produced a new and improved website for both the public and our members. We wish to reach as many charities with as much health and safety information as possible and the only way to do that is via the web. Our website is continuing to improve with features such as a notice board where members can request a partner in our job shadowing scheme, or advertise for vacancies; read answers to frequently asked questions; look at samples of risk assessments in various subjects; watch several short video clips of scenarios requiring risk assessment and much more

In October we signed a LAPS agreement with Westminster Council. If you look further into this website you will be able to read a copy of the agreement and decide how it may be of help to your organisation.

We have forged relationships with other organisations such as the Charity Commission, Upkeep, The Office of the 3^rd Sector and ROSPA and hope to work more with them in the coming year.

We were invited to the Westminster Briefing where we met Judith Hackett, Chair of the Health and Safety Executive. Ms Hackett was interested to speak to us and discuss the unique issues charities encounter with health and safety.

One of the aspects of being Chair of the CSG I enjoy the most is the quarterly meetings. It is an opportunity to meet people from other charities in similar circumstances and learn from their mistakes or offer support and encouragement. It is also a time to listen to timely presentations on relevant topics. Some of the topics we hope to discuss in the coming months are Crisis Management; lone working, returning to work and sickness management; swine flu and we hope to invite one of the countries leading barristers specialising in health and safety to come and speak to us about some specific cases. I hope you will come and join us.

Towards the end of last year I was invited to the office of Westminster Council to meet other organisations who have similar arrangements with the council to us. I sat in a room with representatives from three of the countries largest retail stores. At first I wondered why the CSG was included in this group of household names and then it was pointed out to me that these large chain stores employed several thousands of people between them but if you added up the employees or even just the volunteers associated with CSG members it ran in to many more thousands than the other three put together. That was when it came home to me what a privilege it was to be Chair of this organisation and how far reaching our influence could be. I’m very proud of all we have achieved during the last year and hope we can do as well if not better next year. If you are already a member we hope you agree and will continue to support us and if you have not yet decided to join us we hope you will now be moved to do so.

Rosalind Williams

Chair

Charities Safety Group

29.6.09