Drew McKinnie
Safety Manager
It’s timely to think about constructive approaches to building positive safety capacity in clubs, not just reactive measures after things go wrong. So, here are a few ideas for club safety managers and safety officers, insights from experience, and development issues for young men and women aspiring to contribute through gliding safety. Let’s work on some positives.
Safety Dialogue v Prescription
Safety results come from safety dialogue and positive example, not just prescription, clipboards and shelfware.
Collective Safety Wisdom
Nevertheless, rules, standards, procedures, manuals, checklists and so on have their place. They capture the wisdom of hard-won safety experience. They help define limits of safe operations and airworthiness, performance flying, training and coaching, qualifications and development pathways, design and modification, member wellbeing and personal safety, administration and participation. We use mandated elements, such as emergency response plans.
Improving Safety Wisdom
We should use reporting, safety insights and change proposals to improve the documentary basis. We should solicit suggestions, implement at local club level and recommend improvements through regional officers to national level.
Safety Manager Influence
Because how people behave, and how members collaborate safely, matters, club safety managers can have enormous influence. We set the tone on the flight line, in the air, in the hangar, on the ground – everywhere. Members watch us, listen to our dialogue, see how we behave and how resolve safety issues. As safety managers, we influence behaviour and culture that supports permissive safety dialogue, regardless of experience, role, gender or social status. We profoundly affect the environment in which other members discuss safety – collaboratively, inclusively, positively.
Management Influence
Influence is also organisationally embedded in general club management. Club Presidents, for instance, are club accountable managers for safety purposes as well. Club panel chairs and CFIs have specific operational safety and training standards responsibilities that are supported by instructors and coaches, tug-masters and winch-masters. Club maintenance officers also deliver airworthiness, safety and maintenance support.
As club safety managers, we are their safety sentinels, their influential trusted advisers, eyes and ears. We must be both proactive and reactive, positive and cautionary, open and approachable on risk issues and recommended remedies. Club safety managers have essential leadership roles – with obligations to set a strong example.
Planning Influence
For major events, camps, regattas, competitions, courses, coaching sessions, maintenance periods, working parties, club safety managers can and should have inputs into their planning and execution, and certainly in washups and debriefings. Using club and site-specific insights, safety managers can assist in tailoring risk management plans and event logistics to achieve better safety for all participants.
Better Integrated Operations
Club safety managers can work alongside other airspace users and aerodrome operators to improve collaboration and mutual awareness. We have the capacity to introduce better local operations procedures, mixed aerodrome operations manuals and NOTAMs, and deliver deconfliction advice as well as advice on events and activities. Consultation, listening and encouraging open safety discussions can break down barriers, cultivating safer solutions for mutual benefit.
Seeking Wisdom
With a clear focus on both safety content (what and why) and processes (how), the best safety managers can harvest the wisdom of diverse groups in analysing options for reducing risks and barriers to safety. Listening and analytical skills can help break down preconceived solutions or blamestorming.
Success through Positive Capabilities
Adept and insightful safety managers can drive safety discussions to consider what works well, what positive elements can be built upon and defuse some of the heat and emotion when things go wrong. They can reframe errors and problems. To move beyond “How did we stuff up?”, an important question might instead ask, “What can we do differently next time?” Positive safety actions are cultivated by analysing what the people involved did well, even in worst case scenarios.
Celebrate, Develop Exemplify Safety Teamwork
Great teams often achieve great things and have more fun, safely. Safety managers can use positive reinforcement to cultivate safety teamwork. The quiet volunteers who work to support operations and maintenance, safer hangars and airfields, deserve acknowledgement. Getting club members to help with safety tasks, rewarding initiative, recognising discovery of potential defects or problems – all build positive teamwork and collective safety culture.
Success Stories
Effective safety managers can use short stories, case examples, anecdotes from other clubs and diverse sources, to improve safety awareness. Often these short stories can emerge in end of day debriefings, when we reflect on what has been done well, what has been learned. Success stories may build more positive momentum than finding fault or chastising stuff-ups.
Briefings, Debriefings, Pilots’ Nights, Audits and Safety Reviews
Open communications, sharing safety insights occurs naturally in briefings and debriefings, pilots’ nights and webinars, where stories and lessons can be shared. Safety audits also have an important place in a club, with mandatory compliance aspects checked. Many members are apprehensive about audits, with connotations of clipboard warriors and impositions. But they also make great opportunities for improvement, and for fresh insights from other observers with an appreciation of what works well in other clubs. Safety managers can help set a positive tone, get maximum benefit and positive reinforcement from audit activities.
Authenticity and Exemplary Leadership
Really, it’s all about people – behaviour, shared safety focus and receptiveness to insights from all others. Great safety managers can empower and energise their club colleagues, particularly if their behaviour is reinforced by positive example. We appreciate authenticity and approachability, with initiative and good follow-up.
Using Resources, Expertise and Getting Help. No one has all the answers. The best safety managers are familiar with finding the right references, knowing where to look to find specific safety information. They know how to use the MOSPs and Manuals to guide discovery, develop intelligent questions to ask of the right people in clubs, support organisations and GAus. They have a good awareness of the talent pool in their club and region. Asking for help is a usually a good thing, far better than expensive errors or ignorance. We don’t boil frogs – we get help when needed.
Summary – Building Positive Safety Capacity
Core message: Effective club safety is built through positive leadership, open dialogue, shared experience and collaborative action — not simply rules, compliance or reactive responses to incidents.
Central takeaway
The most effective Club Safety Managers are not simply compliance monitors. They are trusted advisers, positive role models, facilitators of safety dialogue and catalysts for continuous improvement, helping clubs build a collective capability to operate safely.
Core message: Effective club safety is built through positive leadership, open dialogue, shared experience and collaborative action — not simply rules, compliance or reactive responses to incidents.
Central takeaway: The most effective Club Safety Managers are not simply compliancemonitors. They are trusted advisors, positive role models, facilitators of safety dialogueand catalysts for continuous improvement, helping clubs build collective capability to operate safely..
Core message: Effective club safety is built through positive leadership, open dialogue, shared experience and collaborative action — not simply rules, compliance or reactive responses to incidents.
Using Resources, Expertise and Getting Help. No-one has all the answers. The best safety managers are familiar with finding the right references, knowing where to look to find specific safety information. They know how to use the MOSPs and Manuals to guide discovery, develop intelligent questions to ask of the right people in clubs, support organisations and GAus. They have a good awareness of the talent pool in their club and region. Asking for help is a usually a good thing, far better than expensive errors or ignorance. We don’t boil frogs, we get help when need
Summary - Building Positive Safety Capacity
Core message: Effective club safety is built through positive leadership, open dialogue, shared experience and collaborative action
— not simply rules, compliance or reactive responses to incidents.
Central takeaway: The most effective Club Safety Managers are not simply compliancemonitors. They are trusted advisors, positive role models, facilitators of safety dialogueand catalysts for continuous improvement, helping clubs build collective capability to operate safely.
