Safety Technical Group

Each month, the Safety TG committee has a remote meeting to discuss new initiatives, progress on current initiatives, suggestions from our members, and more. This library entry captures the minutes from the March 2020 meeting. 

Safety TG Committee monthly meeting summary

Meeting date March 4^th 2020.

In attendance:

• Tamsyn (Chair)
• Leah (Treasurer)
• Gabriel (Program chair)
• Ali (Newsletter editor)

Status updates:

1. Awards – Safety TG committee has voted to introduce three financial awards for papers submitted to the Safety group track for the annual HFES meeting. Value and process discussed. Formal announcement to be made once details are confirmed via community pages and newsletter.
2. Mentorship scheme – Huiyang is leading this initiative. Discussion took place regarding best method to identify members interested in the program and match mentors and mentees. Potential for Huiyang to reach out to members via a mentorship survey.
3. Newsletter – Aim to release early April.
1. Ali leading this initiative. Discussion of items for inclusion and timelines.
4. Community engagement – Our goal is to make the Safety TG valuable for as many members as possible. Discussion on community pages still very light.

1. Arjun is leading engagement initiatives, and plans to reach out to members via survey to gain opinion on what is missing from the TG, or initiatives that could make the TG more valuable to members. 

1. Arjun is working on ideas for further initiatives. Please contact Arjun with any ideas.

1. Discussion topics are needed – please post on the community pages if you have questions or a topic for discussion.
1. Safety TG program for annual meeting – Call for papers has closed; Gabe will begin allocating reviewers for papers.

1. Reviewers are needed, so please post in the community pages or contact Gabriel if you’re willing to be a reviewer this year.

Misc. items

1. Discussed potential for holding a social event for Safety TG at annual HFES. Possibly a luncheon event at a local restaurant (paid). Need to confirm budget availability and interest level. Any other ideas, please let us know.
2. Many of us will be coming to the end of our two year tenure  in October 2020. Voting will need to be completed prior to the annual conference. Voting will  be organized in August 2020. 
3. Leah raised the topic of encouraging practitioners to attend safety group conferences.
1. One item relating to this was that practitioner papers often get rejected due to not meeting review criteria for research papers. Gabe will lead on this, and will assess the review criteria for industry papers 
2. Another item is to try and make the conference more open and relevant for practitioners. One possibility is a Safety TG panel where we pick either one topic or one domain and ask experts from the field to talk through case studies, or how they apply theory etc. Feedback on interest is appreciated!

Next meeting: 1^st April 2020.

Actions 

• Tamsyn to confirm awards process
• Gabe to connect with Tamsyn and Ron to get started on the review process
• Huiyang to draft survey for mentorship scheme
• Ali to draft newsletter
• Arjun to draft a survey for member outreach and engagement