A day in the life of an Area Manager

My name is Simon Higgins and I am an area manager with the Midlands and Western Region of the RHA. I live near Bristol and have responsibility for Gloucester, Hereford, Worcester, Shropshire and Wales. My background before joining the RHA was varied and certainly gave me a widespread of knowledge to bring to the Association.

There is no such thing as a typical day for an area manager because although we plan events and schedule various meetings, a single phone call can completely change the day. Take last Monday.

I had pre-arranged a visit to a member to assist with digitac downloading that was to be followed by a meeting in Worcester for the Freight Quality Partnership ( a meeting of business and local authorities to look at best practice in the industry and get dialogue on many issues affecting our industry such as lorry parking on to the local authority agenda). Then I was hoping to deliver a new member certificate and I had an evening sub-region meeting to attend. However, a call from the BBC transport correspondent completely changed that.

The member visit had to be rearranged for the afternoon to allow me to meet a camera crew on a motorway services at 10am to record a piece for use in the lunchtime broadcast. The member certificate was then delivered in the morning giving me the opportunity to discuss with the member the contracts and audits service we carry out for members.

Back in to Worcester for the meeting and then off to the member to provide support and assistance to his understanding of digitac downloading. Next it was a trip out to a Truckstop to meet again with a BBC camera crew in order to be able to do a piece live on the early evening news before heading off to the sub-region meeting to meet members to discuss the latest information and legislation and allow them to put points forward to the Regional Council. All in all a typical day as far as it can be.