From the Chair

Another honour bestows me … writing the ‘From the Chair’ piece for the first time. It was a great honour to have the medal put around my neck at this year's AGM and take over the reins from John; I'm looking forward to serving you over the next two years.

As I explained at the AGM I have a few themes I would like to develop over my tenure as Chair. We will work hard to grow SoRSA internationally and grow our links with other organisations. We are already making progress with this after being approached to support the 1st International Congress of Road Safety Auditors to be held in Spain in 2020.

We will also attempt to increase our standing in STEM activities showing the next potential cohort of engineers the importance of Road Safety in general and specifically Road Safety Auditing.

We're all coming around from our most successful Conference yet; 217 people attended the Presentations and there was 197 of us at the Workshops. The new venue didn’t seem to have put any of you off as that is a 11% increase on the 2018 Conference. We've been looking through your feedback and will be taking it on board to make next year even better. We're keen to hear what topics you would like at the workshops and presentations in 2020, so please get in touch.

There are a couple of other exciting things going on behind the scenes which we will be able to tell you more about in the future. We are currently working with our Road Safety Auditor counterparts Asociación de Auditores de Seguridad Vial (ASEVI) from Spain and Forum dos Auditores do Segurança Rodoviária (FASR) from Portugal to provide information to the FIA. Hopefully the news out of our meetings will be exciting.

I would like to take the time to thank John for all his hard work over the last two years and also those who stepped down from the committee after numerous years of hard work. A legacy of John’s is the CIHT SoRSA Road Safety Auditor Guidelines 2019 which are live at http://sorsamanuals.co.uk/ please have a look through the document.

In addition to understanding what you would be interested in hearing at next year's conference we would also like you to get involved more generally. We want to improve and although the committee work tirelessly to do this, we also welcome ideas from our members. If you have any thoughts please contact us either via email sorsa@ciht.org.uk or on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/groups/3680444/

SoRSA Conference 2020

While it may seem early to be thinking about next year’s conference, we all know how quickly diaries can fill up. So make a date for 22 and 23 June 2020 at Manchester Airport Radisson Blu.

Although many people have grown to like the Crown Plaza in Birmingham, the truth is we have outgrown its limited space, and while the Radisson Blu does not boast a city centre location, it has all the facilities we need for a successful conference.

A big thank you to all those of you that completed our Survey Monkey questionnaire. It provides vital feedback to help us improve things for next year. One area which featured strongly was an interest in Vulnerable road user groups and we would like to make this a theme for next years event. We have already had some great suggestions for topics but if you have something you would like to see included why not let us know through the website.

SoRSA Conference 2019 

It was all change this year for SoRSA starting with a new venue, new timings and new format for the 12th Annual SoRSA Workshop and Conference. 

After outgrowing the Crowne Plaza, Birmingham, we moved the Conference to Manchester and we exceeded all expectations with 197 delegates attending the workshops, and 175 delegates staying for the networking dinner.  On the second day, delegates broke all records for the SoRSA Conference with a huge 216 in attendance. 

The two-day event comprised of three interactive workshops, the Annual General Meeting (AGM), the Annual SoRSA Dinner followed by a collection of thought-provoking presentations.

If you could not attend this year, here's the full write up of the two days.

SoRSA Annual Review 2020 

The SoRSA Annual Review 2020 period is open from 1^st February to MIDNIGHT on 31^st March.

 The review period has changed due to the confusion over what dates constitute your 12 or 24-month period, opening the review slightly earlier, therefore allowing all applicant to use calendar months for their 12 and 24-month periods. Also, your CIHT Receipts will be available in January.

You will need to provide the following documentation but please note there have been some changes to the forms and requirements: -

• Completed and signed Annual Review form, including a copy of your receipt to confirm that you have paid the necessary fees either for CIHT Membership or as a Non CIHT member of SoRSA. CIHT Members may download their receipt from their ‘MyCIHT’ area on the CIHT website.
•  Copies of validated CPD Certificates along with a short ‘Lessons Learnt’ report should be provided outlining what was learnt on the course and how this new knowledge has been/will be used. If ‘self-reading’ is being used it should be structured, listing relevant topics and a ‘Lessons Learnt’ report provided. This way of achieving CPD must have been agreed by your Line Manager. A copy of the signed Agreement between yourself and your Line Manager must be provided. A template is also provided with the review form. The 12-month requirement will be 1^st January 2019 to 31^st December 2019 inclusive
•  A copy of a Road Safety Audit report written by you in the last 24 months (Note: the 24 months is January 2017 to December 2019). The report should contain a minimum of 6 different types of problems. A maximum of 2 reports may be supplied to reach this number of problems.
•  A checklist is now included to help you submit the correct information and to ensure Road Safety Audits are compliant to GG119. If you are not working to GG119, please supply the standard/policy you are working to in English with your review.

SoRSA will not chase for your application. It is your responsibility to ensure your email address accepts emails from the CIHT email address. If you know a colleague who has moved companies, changed email addresses etc., please ask them to update me and CIHT with their new email addresses before the end of the year.

If anyone has any questions or issues with the review process, please contact me via sorsa@ciht.org.uk.

Lyn
SoRSA Membership Secretary

1st International Congress: Road Safety Auidtors (Spain)

The First International Congress on Road Safety Auidtors will be taking place in Spain in May 2020. SoRSA will be taking a leading role in the event as one of the official collaborators. 

Find out more about the congress here. 

The Birth of SoRSA

How did SoRSA come about?

Libby Sands, Inaugural Chair, talks about how SoRSA came into fruition. 

And finally, it's not who's right, it's who's left!