This double issue of the Safety and Reliability Journal is the last in the Volume published in the year the Society turns 40 years old! For information on the founders of the Society please look in our Journal archive at an article (Vol 23 Issue 2) by Dr David Smith, who was our President from 2001–2004. This gives some insight into how and why the Society was convened along with some archived documents reproduced after this editorial.
To celebrate 40 years of SARS we have gone back into our archives and are pleased to include in this issue: reproductions of the press release from 1980 announcing the inaugural meeting of the society (), a short history by George Hensley that led to this event () and our first ever newsletter ().
I started to work with the Society in 1995. I have a background in psychology and I had previously studied Human Factors in health. I was keen to work with a charity that would develop people and knowledge. I worked with Bruce Guy, my predecessor as Company Secretary, for many years and together we supported Council to work on many projects and events that furthered the Charitable Aims of the Society.
During that time, I have met many people at events and meetings. Many of them have joined the Society to have their expertise in safety and reliability professionally recognised and often to also support the work it does. A key question I have been asked many times since 1995 is why is SaRS a charity? Who does it help?
Fast forward to 2020 and COVID-19 and this question became even more pertinent as support for charitable organisations became necessary due to reduced donations and more competing pressure on volunteers. This means that many charities must seek help and additional funding. While SaRS is not a ‘frontline’ charity, its work is more about preventing major incidents. This is a big claim, but over the last 40 years members of SaRS have worked tirelessly to make sure that their knowledge in the field and its tools and techniques reach as far and wide as possible. This, in turn, has been used to understand and manage many risks including the potential frequency of major incidents in a variety of different industries.
As well as the obvious support from membership subscriptions, members have donated their knowledge for 40 years. This is recorded in the archives of the journal where you can track the development of safety, reliability and risk knowledge over the years. Industry figureheads such as Lord Cullen of Whitekirk, Trevor Kletz and James Reason have spoken at our events and contributed to the Society; we are grateful to them for drawing attention to SaRS.
Many of our members work in high hazard industry and infrastructure. By:
Maintaining a database of experts
Working with other organisations to maintain standards
Utilising the skills of volunteers as well as staff
Providing an opportunity for everyone – members and non-members - to contribute to membership benefits such as the newsletter, journal and webinars
Our approach to cross-industry learning developed over 40 years provides a framework for sharing learning that otherwise risks being siloed. SaRS had transferred this information in many forms so that all our members can use it in their professional life. This Volume of the journal, published in our 40th year, aptly demonstrates the range of topics and sectors we are engaged in.
More recently, and as a result of a lot of hard work from volunteers over the year, SaRS has become a Licensed Member of the Engineering Council. This goes even further to prioritise the ‘interests of individual professionals and practitioners’ as stated as the aim of convening the Society in 1980. I doubt that the founding members of SaRS would have been able to predict how far the organisation would come.
I hope you will celebrate with me in the coming months. In other, less difficult times, we would have organised a dinner or conference. But there are other ways to celebrate by looking to the future of the Society positively and remembering how the work of volunteers, many under the many new pressures of COVID-19, continue to make the world safer and more reliable for everyone as the society continues into its fifth decade.
This commemorative double issue of Safety and Reliability Journal is dedicated to all our members past, present and future. It includes papers from the nuclear and mining sectors as well as papers on reliability modelling and engineering, along with news of our new Affiliate Forum where we hope you will encourage your employers to join with SaRS to include the industry.
Thank you for your continued support of the Society – I will be toasting the tremendous amount of progress made and the efforts and time of members like yourself who have made this happen.
CEO, SaRS
[email protected]
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Figure 1. Press release, announcing the inaugural meeting of the Safety and Reliability Society, 1980.
Figure 2. ‘The formation of the Safety and Reliability Society’, by George Hensley.
Figure 3. First newsletter of the Safety and Reliability Society.
