As a Senior WHSE Coordinator at Multiplex, Bob McCulloch places the highest importance on the well-being of tradies. So, when he heard about the Tradie Health Institute and the research underway to improve the outcomes of those diagnosed with occupational lung diseases like silicosis, he jumped at the chance to tour the lab at The Prince Charles Hospital.
“To come and see this lab and understand the effect that such a small lab can have – in Australia and even beyond – it’s amazing, it’s motivating,” Bob, Senior WHSE Coordinator at Multiplex, said.
He was so motivated to make a difference and ensure this vital research could continue, that he rallied the troops at the Queens Wharf site where he was working. There he enlisted the help of subcontractors and asked them to donate gift cards to raffle off.
Their generosity meant Bob could create 8 x raffle prizes, each containing $1,000 in gift cards. For the two weeks after that, Bob and other on-site health and safety representatives sold raffle tickets.
Those ticket sales netted $12,000 for The Common Good’s Tradie Health Institute.
“It was really easy to do… I would spend 30-45 minutes each morning in the lunchrooms selling tickets. I also had a square reader for Eftpos,” he said.
“I’d go down there, have a cup of coffee, sell tickets and talk to people about changing codes of practice relating to silica management, and discuss what The Common Good and the Tradie Health Institute are doing – so it was time really well spent.”
He was able to top up that amount by $7,000 due to an on-site recycling fund.
“Any scrap reinforcement steel, or steel not being used on the job, gets segregated out of our bins so that we don’t send it to our waste recycling centre. The scrap steel goes off-site, gets weighed and comes back to us as cash,” Bob said.
And even though the workforce is large at the site where Bob was fundraising, he believes sites with fewer workers can also make a worthwhile impact for the Tradie Health Institute.
His advice to others wanting to fundraise for this initiative is to try and find a simple, workable solution.
“Even a small amount of money goes a long way. An hour of research is equivalent to $48, so every 48 dollars you raise is an hour of research that can be done. That’s pretty amazing stuff. You don’t need to raise thousands and thousands of dollars – the more you get, the better, but even a small amount goes a long way and lots of small amounts equal a big amount, so everyone has an opportunity to try and contribute and help fund this research,” said Bob.
“The more money we can raise to try and help the Tradie Health Institute find a solution, the better off our industry is going to be.”
Click here to learn more about the Tradie Health Institute.
If you are an organisation that would like to support the Tradie Health Institute fill in an online enquiry here.
