New Year, New Start, New Format for QMS!

The QMS team are back after a refreshing and fulfilling Christmas break with their families and as always, we started the year with an Environmental, Quality and Health and Safety review of 2023 and discussed updates made to the systems that are in place.

For many years there has always been the dreaded, (dare we say it) dull and long day of Health and Safety review, generally where one person speaks and talks about issues that have occurred in the last 12 months and how we can make it better. The idea of coming into the year with updates and spending the day with everyone together at the same time is fantastic, you have everyone in one place and can really drive the message home and get the right feedback from the teams that are out on the frontline with the tools and knowledge to get the job done. This is all great stuff but keeping the teams engaged for eight hours can be tough!

The management team at QMS decided to kick off 2024 with something a little different, scrap that, massively different! in the November Management Meeting our MD Greg said “I’ve had an idea! Let’s shake things up and make it a day that the teams will never forget!” after some breath holding followed by discussions the QMS 2024 Gameshow was born.

The Gameshow Was Born

The theme of the Gameshow would include all the important content of a Health and Safety, Environmental and Quality Management day and include the updates to the Risk and Method statements but delivered in a way that will keep the guys engaged and forthcoming, using recognised quiz shows as an outline for each of the rounds. We had the pleasure of welcoming Chris Bentley, former Exeter Chief turned host extraordinaire to take the floor and deliver the show the only way he knows how, and give the guys a fresh voice to listen to which would add the charisma and passion that’s needed to keep the excitement.

The day was made up of 13 rounds consisting of interactive flipchart rounds that included items like aspects and impacts, risk assessment updates and environmental procedures to rapid fire “fingers on buzzers” rounds covering a wide variety of legislative response questions! The crews were set into six teams, sporting their team-coloured T-shirts provided by PVM each one of them supported by one of the management team as a LifeLine™ to help the guys answer the questions without getting caught!

After the first round of Rapid Fire questions the teams where warmed up with the buzzers well tested and Team Hagrid taking the lead with Jenni Bell as their LifeLine™. The rapid fire was a mixture of H&S, Environment and Quality to test the knowledge of the staff on our ISO standards that we are proud to work to.

We had a guest appearances from one of our suppliers asking a question about products and equipment, Charles Spencer from MEON asked the guys about paint tip sizes for specific markings and line sizes a round of Blankety Blank where the teams had to fill in the missing words in the paragraphs taken from our risk assessments and method statements. The teams also had an option for the most ridiculous answers but only if they had the correct one to go with it!

Further guest appearances from our NQA Assessor Gareth Palmer throwing in an accreditation question which stumped a few of the panel together with one of our friendly customers asking about road marking standards on the highway all added to the mixture of fun and engagement from everybody involved.

Amongst all the serious points we had to cover there was space for a fun round or two, “Would I Lie To You”, brought on a mystery guest in the form of Dillon Howells, Dillon has recently been selected to join Team GBR in as an athlete in the Aqua Bike championships. He will be heading to Malaga in October for the World Championships where he will compete amongst the best in his category.

QMS have taken the opportunity to support and sponsor Dillon on his journey and there will be more to come on this at a later date. Until this point the teams at QMS did not know that this was in place, and we had some interesting stories about how the “liars” (Managers) were associated with Dillon from rescuing rabbits to mixed martial arts! With our MD Greg telling the truth although it makes us wonder how much we can trust our IMS Manager Natasha with her convincing details of Dillon being her son’s football coach!

Our CEO Ralph Clark also attended the day and unlike the others, was a team on his own acting as the knowledge of all experience and The Chaser. Despite his wealth of knowledge over the decades, the vast changes in industry and product specifications over the years meant the younger teams were able to stand triumphant (and allow Ralph to get back to the golf course).

All in all it was a fantastic day that was well hosed by Chris Bentley bringing the banter and fun to Sandy Park to make what would have been the same old regular event that everyone does every year exciting, fun and informative. A massive well done to the winning team, enjoy the bragging rights… until next year!

A massive thanks as always to the team at Sandy Park for excellent arrangements and some of the best lasagne around!