On Monday 5th March 2018 our two company directors Colin and Molly attended an official RPII training day at RPII house in Coventry. The training day is setup to outline the safety of inflatable hire and train operators and attendants in the bouncy castle hire industry.
As our company is only small and we don’t have any full time staff, Colin and Molly are both operators and attendants as well as a controller. This is why this training and exam was so important for us to attend to ensure we were giving our customers 100% safety.
So what is an controller, operator or attendant? And why are they so important?
A controller is responsible for the testing and maintenance of all equipment owned by the company. This include making sure kit is annually tested, all electrical equipment is PAT tested and that equipment is in good condition and safe to use.
An operator is someone over that age of 18 and has been appointed by the controller to be in control of day to day operations, e.g. delivering and setting up inflatables correctly and safely, managing attendants and ensuring safe practice throughout a hire.
An attendant is similar to an operator only they must be of at least 16 years of age, and are instructed by the operator to help with day to day operations.
These roles are highly important within the bouncy castle industry as without these people in place there is no one to control to safe use of equipment. By attending this course Colin and Molly learnt even more about the ins and outs of all the regulations of setting up inflatables for hire.
What have we learnt from this course and why it is beneficial?
With the course being ran by RPII who are recognised by Health and Safety Executives as the industry standard organisation for inflatable testing and training our company is now recognised in having RPII trained operators and attendants. Our business is displayed on the rpii website under operators and both Colin and Molly have received ID cards for identification as an officially trained operator and attendant. We are the only company in Nottingham to have this training.
Some of the aspects of the regulations we learnt about are:
- Dimensions of how much space is needed around and in-front of all types of inflatables
- What space the impact zone is
- Correct Anchorage, ensuring that a hiring on all surfaces is correct and the correct ways of securing an inflatable on grass or hardstanding
- We also watched many videos of inflatable injuries which is why we have rules set in place to help prevent these from happening again.
This qualification now proves that Gedling Bouncy Castle Hire staff are competent in setting up inflatables and event equipment correct and safely.
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