03 September 2012
Poignant video appeals from two Scottish fathers who lost their children in blind cord and driveway accidents will be played at the annual RoSPA Occupational Health and Safety Awards ceremony in Glasgow this month.
Angus McLaughlin, whose two-year-old daughter Muireann was strangled by a blind cord at home in Clackmannanshire in 2008, and Mark Goodwill, whose 17-month-old son Iain was struck by a car on his family’s driveway near Inverness in 2007, will address more than 600 guests as part of the RoSPA Awards charity prize draw on September 20.
They will tell gala dinner guests at the Hilton Glasgow about the tragedies and talk about their work with the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA), a safety charity that has been at the heart of accident prevention for more than 95 years. Their messages will include an update on how £3,300 raised at the 2011 RoSPA Awards ceremony in Glasgow was spent on blind cord and driveway safety.
In addition to the money raised in Glasgow last year, which was spent on projects in Scotland, blind cord and driveway safety projects across the UK are benefiting from more than £27,000 raised by guests at three RoSPA Awards ceremonies in Birmingham in May, where charity prize draws were also supported by video messages from Angus and Mark.
The RoSPA Awards scheme, which is sponsored by NEBOSH (the National Examination Board in Occupational Safety and Health), is the largest and longest-running occupational health and safety awards programme in the UK. It recognises organisations’ commitment to continuous improvement in the prevention of accidents and ill health at work, looking not just at accident records, but also entrants’ overarching health and safety management systems.
Karen McDonnell, head of RoSPA Scotland, said: “Each year, the RoSPA Awards event in Glasgow is a fantastic celebration of the achievements of organisations the length and breadth of Scotland. Amid the celebrations, however, we feel it is crucial to remember RoSPA’s wider accident prevention mission; many more people are killed and injured in accidents at home than at work, and Muireann and Iain’s stories provide a heartbreaking insight into the devastating effect of such accidents.
“We are immensely grateful to Angus and Mark for the work they do to prevent more families suffering and thank them for recording the messages that will be played at our gala dinner. I have no doubt that the generosity shown by our guests in Glasgow last year, and in Birmingham in May, will be more than replicated and will further the life-saving work of RoSPA Scotland’s home and road safety teams on blind cord and driveway safety.”
There are nearly 1,900 winners in the RoSPA Awards 2012 including more than 150 based in Scotland, many of which will receive their awards during a daytime ceremony or at the gala dinner on September 20. The winner of the prestigious RoSPA Scotland Trophy - presented to the highest performing organisation based or operating in Scotland - will be announced during the gala dinner. The RoSPA Awards ceremony in Glasgow takes place the day after the RoSPA Scotland Occupational Safety and Health Congress.
Extended versions of Angus and Mark’s video appeals can be viewed on RoSPA’s YouTube site. Members of the public can donate to RoSPA’s work on child safety by texting SAVE24 £2 to 70070. Details of how to make other donations in support of RoSPA’s mission to save lives and reduce injuries can be found online at www.rospa.com/about/donate/.