THE TEAM at Fire Safety Matters – comprising Brian Sims (Editor), Mark Sennett (CEO at Western Business Media and the founder of Fire Safety Matters), Leanne Velez (sales manager), magazine designer Alex Romer and Estie Adamczyk (marketing executive) – would like to wish all of our readers, contributors and commercial partners a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

2022 has been another particularly busy year for the fire industry, with the Building Safety Act granted Royal Assent in late April in the wake of the Fire Safety Act coming to fruition last year. The Fire Safety (England) Regulations, of course, will be a keen focus of attention come January.

Back in April, we ran the inaugural edition of the Fire and Security Matters Awards at the CBS Arena in Coventry. Entries for the 2023 awards scheme (for which the Headline Sponsor is Aico) are already open. Check out the categories online now and submit your entries. The deadline for entries is 31 March, with the ceremony taking place on 15 June, again at the CBS Arena.

The inaugural Fire Safety Matters Golf and Networking Day took place at the Celtic Manor Resort on 14 June and proved to be a huge success. The weather was kind to us and there were excellent Continuing Professional Development (CPD) presentations in the morning courtesy of the Institute of Fire Safety Managers (IFSM), FSi, Tio Fire Safety and Safety Chair.

In November, the Fire Safety Matters Digital Conference 2022 brought two days’ worth of first-class presentations to an online audience. Our Headline Sponsor was Aico. Event sponsors also included C-TEC, FFE, FirePro UK, Safety Chair, Tio Fire Safety and Uptick. All of the sessions are now available to view On Demand and qualify for CPD. Access the website and simply click the Watch on Demand button.

FIA Guide to the UK Fire Safety Industry

Earlier this month, we published the second edition of the Fire Industry Association (FIA) Guide to the UK Fire Safety Industry. The 2022-2023 publication (which is published as a joint venture in conjunction with the FIA) is now available to view online and follows on from the 2021-2022 publication which, at the tail end of last month, won the Commercial Partnership of the Year Award at the PPA Independent Publisher Awards 2022.

Speaking of the online domain, Fire Safety Matters hosted no fewer than 23 webinars during the course of 2022, with the content for each accredited for CPD thanks to our ongoing and special arrangement with the IFSM. There are already further webinars planed for the early part of 2023, with sessions booked for both FirePro UK and FireQual. Also, we have continued to bring you our hugely popular Fire Safety Matters Podcasts. We recently published Episode 28.

On top of all that, we’ve also delivered 47 editions of our very popular e-News bulletin and, of course, four editions of the print magazine itself. You can view all four print editions by accessing our digital archive.

Throughout the course of this year, we hope that all of our readers, contributors and commercial partners have benefited from working with us. We do what we do for the industry and its continuing development and betterment, but we couldn’t do that without your invaluable support.

Once again, we wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and a healthy, happy and prosperous New Year. We look forward to working with you in 2023 and we’ll see you all again on 3 January.