December Update

Busy month, what with the ICAO Working Group meeting in Abu Dhabi, followed very shortly by the UN Subcommitte of Experts meeting in Geneva - the first blest with nice warm temperatures, the latter with the most snow there's been in Geneva of 30+ years...   In between, lots of work on the various corrigenda and addenda for the ICAO TI and the AIR Shipper manual.  Think I'll separate those into separate posts - this is a blog after all!

Much discussion at the UN on air matters tho'.   It would appear that the new TI makes it impossible to ship Aviation regulated materials!  Presumably the emails are going back and forward to resolve that problem.  Certainly, that's not the intention of the new provisions, but there's a couple of a couple of consequential amendments were not made to the revised packing instructions and shippers are left wondering what to do.  Look for some sort announcement shortly.

November Update

November is when we start to get real frost here in Montreal.   But I'm off to the warmth (31C last I looked) of Abu Dhabi for the ICAO WG-10 Panel meeting.  Another round on LiBats I suppose and perhaps some clean up issues on the latest Technical Instructions - haven't gotten mine yet, it's supposed to be on its way.  AIR Shipper is out tho' as is the competition.  Glad AIR's doing so well, we can afford a DGR...

With Bob Richard joining the Labelmaster team, I'm really excited about what we'll be able to do with the AIR Shipper manual.  Nothing like an expert regulator's eye to spot areas to improve!

Website Update

One step forward, two steps back, or sideways, up or down.  Never thought life was that orthogonal!!
The DG nexus website (http://www.dg-nexus.net/) is slowly making progress.  Still rudimentary, it's not real easy to add content to but it does coordinate access the the other functions such as the instructors website.

That's at http://instructors.dg-nexus.net/ A recent update saw the customization of the board disappear.  Hopefully that'll be back in a couple of days.  Up to 35 users now. 

Then there's the dg-nexus board with it's specialized forums for the ICAO papers, AIR Shipper and the ICAO Technical Instructions.  That's at http://compliance.dg-nexus.net/ Will continue to play with those applications and fine-tune them but feedback to date's been very positive.  Stay tuned.

DGAC's Conference is next week.

So if you're there, do forget to say hi!  I'll be at the Labelmaster booth a lot of the time - the one with all the neat books not the one with the cool software...   Actually folks, you drop by that one 'cos Seattle is the home of the Labelmaster software arm and you'll get a chance to talk to the programmers up front and in personal.   I know they loooove to hear your ideas on what should or should not be in the next release of the various DG software packages.   And with FedEx moving to compliance checking software only generated forms, this is more interesting than ever.

Dangerous Goods Information Nexus now up

Long time fans of Dick Elbourne's instructors' website will be pleased to know "it's baaaack!!".
After a 6 month hiatus, Dick and myself have finally be able to bring it back on line.  Can't say new and improved but it's certainly a lot less expensive and that means we can probably spend a little time and money on getting it up to speed.

Go to:  http://instructors.dg-nexus.net/ and see what we've built so far.   Currently we're loading content from the previous board and learning what works and what doesn't along the way.

You'll see that's it strongly linked to a parent DG Nexus site which also gets you directly to this Blog.  This is intended to make it possible to share content across the various fields, topics, jurisdictions.  I say intended, we'll see if it works!

Stay tuned and don't forget to register on the instructor's board.  Would be kinda nice if you'd post something there too just to let us know it's alive!!

DGIS V - Another success by all accounts

About 120 instructors from as far afield as Egypt, India and Australia!
Labelmaster (full disclosure, my employer) once again hosted a great and unique event.
DGTA again provided a intensive course upgrading instructors qualifications.
There's a lot of folks out there missing out on the best deal in dangerous goods transportation.

DGTA

Whoops forgot to post that I got re-elected to the board of the Dangerous Goods Trainers Association.  Guess my ideas are not so way out after all.  I get asked a lot about the DGTA.  Seems there's lots of folks sitting on the fence - ask yourself, is some kind of minimum standard a good thing and are you happy with the status quo?  No brainer for me!

Dangerous Goods Instructors Website migrating

Just sent a post to the 496 instructors on Dick Elbourne's Dangerous Goods Instructors website.  Cost has become prohibitive and we're  (Dick and me) going to migrate it somewhere else.  Not sure where but I expect it to have it's own domain name.  Interested parties stay tuned!

DGIS V - Back to Chicago

The 5th edition of the modestly popular and highly acclaimed Dangerous Goods Instructors Symposium is scheduled for 22 - 24 September in August.  Those folks who were there last year not only learned a lot but had great time.  What a combo!  Chicago, one of the great world cities and one that we don't always get to go to.  This is a great way to do it on a company and tax free basis!
I've got another super program planned - now to get people to fill the spots - volunteers? :)