Safety professionals quick to sign up to IPAF membership

The International Powered Access Federation (IPAF) has seen a surge of interest in its new Safety Professional member category, aimed at those in health & safety or related supervisory roles within powered access or wider industry, with the first member in the category already signed up.

The new membership category was launched officially to coincide with the Vertikal Days event in Peterborough, UK, on 22-23 September. The first member was officially signed up during the event, as Chris Wraith, Powered Access Safety Consultant and former IPAF Safety & Technical Manager, took the opportunity to sign on the dotted line. IPAF has subsequently received a lot of interest in the new membership category, from the UK, US, Mexico, Singapore and the Middle East among other locations.

The new category of membership is aimed at individuals within larger organisations, including those employed by existing IPAF Member companies, and is a cost-effective way to benefit from the Federation and its activities, bringing benefits and increasing opportunities to receive direct updates from IPAF about safety and technical guidance, join exclusive webinars and events, and to engage directly with IPAF experts and fellow members.

Benefits of the membership include free participation in exclusive safety professional events with leading speakers from the powered access industry, access to a private LinkedIn group to share knowledge and safety good practice, access to the members’ area of the IPAF website and the IPAF accident reporting portal members’ dashboard, and a free subscription to Health & Safety International magazine.

Brian Parker, IPAF’s Head of Safety & Technical, says: “It’s great to see that this new category of membership aimed at health & safety managers, supervisors or officers is already proving popular. We received many enquiries and expressions of interest, from within the UK and across the world since we launched it just over a week ago.

“We thought the Vertikal Days event was an ideal opportunity to explain more about what the new category has to offer, and we received a great deal of interest from both employees of existing IPAF member firms and those who for one reason or another were not able to join as they were not employed by a company directly involved in the powered access industry.”

Paul Roddis, IPAF’s Training Manager, adds: “It is worth pointing out that this new category of individual membership is also ideally suited for IPAF Training Centre employees or Individual Instructors, who are all Safety Professionals in their own right.

“Individual employees of existing IPAF Training Members may wish to augment their involvement with IPAF and its committees by adding the Safety Professional Category. Likewise Independent Instructors who become employed by an existing IPAF Training Member company used to have to relinquish their individual membership; now they can sign up to the new Safety Professional category – available at half-price if employed by an existing IPAF Member company – to continue to enjoy the benefits and opportunities they will have enjoyed as an individual member. It really is a win-win.”

Peter Douglas, CEO & MD of IPAF, comments: “I’m pleased to make the Safety Professional membership available, and welcome Chris as the first member to join the new category. Of course Chris is well known to us at IPAF, having formerly headed up the Safety & Technical Department, served on a IPAF committees and councils, and continued as a member as the owner of his safety consultancy since leaving his role with IPAF in 2018.

“Chris was in fact the senior site safety and security supervisor for the Vertikal Days event, and had attended the inaugural IPAF International Safety Committee on the day he signed up to our new Safety Professional Membership; so he is exactly the sort of person we had in mind when creating the new category. I am sure many more like Chris will follow in joining IPAF as Safety Professionals.”

● If the applicant is employed by an existing IPAF member, a 50% discount on the new applicant’s membership fee is applied. For more information about the benefits of IPAF membership visit www.ipaf.org/join or email members@ipaf.org for details about types of membership and to register your interest in becoming an IPAF Safety Professional.