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14
Generation & Wholesale Markets
October/November 2013 www.esb.ie/em
LOUGH REE POWER comes to assistance of Lough Keel Scouts
LOUGH KEEL SCOUT County travelled to Poland over the summer to host their first international camp. The county consists of scout groups from Ardagh (Longford), Bal-linamore (Leitrim), Boyle (Roscommon), Carick-on-Shannon (Leitrim), Lanesborough (Longford) and Longford town. A contingent of 86 scouts and 14 leaders departed from Ireland in June and were joined by the 87th Dublin (Polish) scout group to make a 100-strong Irish contingent heading to the Krzeczków campsite in western Poland. The campsite was located in dense woodland on the edge of a lake approximately midway between Poznan, Wroclaw and Berlin.
Various courier and haulage firms were contacted; some only travelled when they had a full load, others charged a premium and would only deliver to the nearest town - they obviously knew the campsite was in a remote location.
One of the scout leaders, Liam Kelly from Lough Ree Power, approached Plant Manager Tom Moran to see if one of the station vans could be spared to the group for a week to ferry some of the equipment over and back from Poland. Tom offered his assistance and together with Liam Doyle, Maintenance Team Leader and Seamus Finn, Safety Services Officer, they made a Ford Transit available after ensuring that all the necessary insurance requirements were in place. A trial packing of the van revealed that all 72 bags could be accommodated inside the van and still leave room for driver and co-driver!
Liam assisted by fellow scout leader Junior Hannon departed in the fully loaded van on Thursday June 27th on a night ferry from Dublin to Holy-head. From there they drove to Harwich and boarded another ferry to the Hook of Holland. Then came the long drive through Germany and into Poland arriving on Saturday morning, just a few hours ahead of the scouts.
The campsite itself was not unlike other scout campsites, though full board was included. This consisted of three meals each day with all fresh produce. It took some of the scouts a while to get used to so much tomatoes, cucumber, cheese and lemon tea - but all soon adjusted to the new cuisine.
As the campsite was in a remote location the van came in very handy for daily excursions to the nearest shop for milk and coffee and other essentials to keep the leaders calm.
The logistics of getting everyone and their equipment to and from the campsite required a lot of organisation and while the cheapest option would have been to travel by coach to Poland, this would have taken up to two days travelling each way. You could imaging how calm everyone would be after two days cooped up on a bus! The option chosen was to fly half the group out through Berlin and the other half through Wraclow. To assist in the multiple booking the scout group sought the assistance of Budget School and Group Tours. The cost of bringing rucksacks and camping equipment on the flights would have been €50 per item or €5,000 in total so an alternative means of transport was needed in order to keep costs to a reasonable level.
The Lough Keel group returned safely home on Monday July 8th and their bags arrived later on that evening. They all have great memories of their Poland trip and would like to express their gratitude to all the staff in ESB Lough Ree Power. Without their assistance the trip would not have been as enjoyable and affordable for all.
Former ESB man in another stage success
HENRY HUDSON'S stage play The Locker Room was recently produced at The Sean O'Casey Theatre in Dublin. The production had a very successful run with excellent houses and very positive critical reaction. Many serving and ex ESB staff attended and took the opportunity to recall the heydays of places like the Pigeon House, Ringsend and Poolbeg stations.
Henry took a career change in 1999 and went as a mature student to the Samuel Beckett Centre in Trinity College from where he graduated with a BA in 2003.
His plays have been produced by both professional and amateur groups. His play Comfort & Joy was the RTÉ Christmas play in 2010 while his short story Playing for Time appeared in the New York Review. His work has also appeared on Sunday Miscellany and in The Stinging Fly literary magazine. His novel Beyond Pulditch Gates (based on a fictional Dublin power station) was published in 2001; a French translation was published in Paris in 2007. He has written a second novel Tea and he is now working on a novel for children.
The first version of The Locker Room (1992) was set in a Dublin factory against the background of the 1983 Abortion Referendum, mass emigration and the dire economic situation of that time. In the new version, set in 2013, the nephew of one of the men who worked in the factory revisits the derelict building on the night before it is to be demolished.
He reads from a diary that his uncle kept on the events of thirty years before and as he reads the audience is brought back to 1983 to see the characters and events of that time and to realise, like the reader, that in thirty years only the props have changed, but the script remains the same.
Henry is a former winner of:
• RTE P.J. O'Connor Radio Drama Awards (Best Play 1988/Best Writer 1990)
• The Heinrich Boll Award for Literature
• Listowel Writer's Week Full- Length Playwright's Award
• Cork Arts Festival Playwright's Award.
FISHERIES CONSERVATION REACHES 1,500 DAYS LTI-FREE
»On June 11th 2013, Fisheries Conservation reached the milestone of 1,500 days with no lost time incident (LTI), a noteworthy achievement given the diverse work and locations involved.
FISHERIES CONSERVATION operates three conservation salmon hatcheries on the rivers Shannon, Erne and Lee; as well as a comprehensive programme of river restoration and an eel trap and transport programme. The wide range of work requires the management of high-risk areas like, working-over-water, chemical handling, manual handling, operating heavy plant and machinery, contractor management, and most significantly ESB Fleet vehicles. Fisheries Conservation also holds OSHAS 18001 Certification, first achieved in 2008 and retained since without any major non-conformances.
Noel Greally, Manager of Fisheries & Property Asset Recovery, says that ESB Fisheries staff deserve huge credit for the way safety issues are addressed in the workplace. “The wide range of activities undertaken in Fisheries Conservation requires close cooperation between all locations. Risk Assessment is a fundamental part of all work activity and is supplemented by a comprehensive auditing process. We see the achievement of 1,500 days without a lost time incident as a reward for the effort of the last few years and as an indicator of an injury-free work environment into the future”.
Staff training also plays a big part in the ongoing safety drive and each year, a comprehensive safety training plan is formulated to handle training needs in the Fisheries area. In addition, an active safety committee, made up of representatives from each location, meet to deal with all safety issues and communicate the actions required to all staff. The work being done by all in maintaining OSHAS 18001 certification is commendable and a credit to all involved.
Visiting the Belmont and Lanes-boro, work bases to congratulate the staff of Fisheries Conservation on achieving this milestone, Suzanne Ward, Commercial Manager Generation, said that there is clearly a good safety culture in Fisheries Conservation and she urged all staff to continue to keep up the good work by making safety their number one priority in all that they do.
ESB Generation completes stage 1 of PAS 55 accreditation
PAS 55 IS AN ASSET Management specification, which primarily looks at the management of the physical assets of a company. ESB Networks was accredited to the specification and ESB Generation is currently seeking accreditation. Lloyds Register has been appointed as our auditors. The accreditation is a two-stage process where stage 1 examines the Asset Management processes and stage 2 examines their implementation. Last week, following a four-day audit in Head Office, ESB Generation successfully completed stage 1 of the accreditation process. As expected in an asset management system at this stage of maturity, there were a number of minor non-conformances and some scope for improvements which we will be working on to improve.
The stage 2 audit is planned for the last two weeks of November when Aghada, Corby, Dublin Bay, Lough Ree Power and West Offaly Power will be visited. The remaining stations in the portfolio will be audited over the course of 2014.
