Australia's SWUG conference over the weekend was more about people issues - training, wellness, safety and leadership - than technology.

More than 150 delegates, the usual mix of user sites and vendors, including some from Europe, the US and even the Gulf - were in Penrith, NSW, at the events centre on the giant Panthers site.

And while most events - including a visit to the Penrith Museum of Printing and last nght's gala dinner overlooking the sacred NRL turf - were near or onsite, a highlight was a trip to see the North Richmond print centre of host Fairfax Media. Here daily editions of the Sydney Morning Herald and Australian Financial Review are printed following the closure (and scrapping) of their Chullora plant... along with a host of other work. Heatset, coldset, UV, single-width, double-with, even one into the other, they've got it, and delegates were fascinated and impressed by the operation, anchored on manroland press and Ferag mailroom equipment.

Later they heard from Roger O'Brien about the recently-extended APN Warwick print centre and from Greg Carson about APN's busy Yandina site, named PANPA's print centre of 2015.

And of the wonders viewed on his tour of Australian sites by last year's apprentice of the year Aaron Bayne; of the Shepparton News site overseen by production director Paul Kelly; and of the multimillion-dollar mailroom upgrade being undertaken by News Corp Australia in Sydney and Brisbane.

And of the apparently money-no-object plant of Gulf News publisher Al Nisr in Dubai, where former Ballarat site manager Mike Condon runs a huge and highly-automated plant with a waterless (and heatset) KBA Cortina press, located in the middle of the desert.

Delegates also learned from QuadTech president Karl Fritchen of the extra benefits modern colour measurement and register systems can bring; from Fujifilm's Warren Hinder that advances in processor-free and low-chemistry plate systems meant they were now living up to the claims originally made for them; about spray dampening from tehnotrans' Augsburg-based Klaus Wiedeman; of a spray that helps stop rollers breaking up when running half-webs; and from Shaun Thiele about the importance of filtering lubricants.

Updates on new press developments came from Goss International's Peter Kirwan and manroland's John Ostler, the latter with industrial-scale digital newspaper print finishing installations in Europe to talk about.

Kirwan reported that five of Goss' highly-automated Magnum Compact presses have now been ordered, and reported on the first US site - at the SI Offset site of the Staten Island Advance - and another at Colombo, Sri Lanka. Both share a common problem, the need to produce numerous relatively small runs in quick-fire succession. Not all new users will print newspapers however, including one who will install a two-tower press modified for spot and partial full colour book printing.

Another technical contribution came from Jeff Seach of Fairfax's Mandurah, WA, site who told of inhouse-developed and built products and innovations including an air-blown turner-bar made from polycarbonate and a sophisticated inline quarterfolder with $30,000-worth of electronics.

It was, as Yandina-based APN Print general manager Greg Carson had put it, that you can have all the equipment in the world and have nothing without good people.

Laura Hall talked training, and of the development of standardised skills, notably at the North Richmond site. Kurt Brissett (of the Sydney roller-making family) reprised his presentation on leadership, relating team-building needs to his experience in Afghanistan. And Jackie Furey - an Irish catholic Scouse psychotherapist who could double as a stand-up comic - talked about moods, what goes on in your head... and how to get on top of it.

Her wellness talk followed another by former drugs cop Bryce Dick (introduced by Norske Skog's John Cox, which someone had obviously thought would be funny) on the impact of alcohol and drugs in the workplace.

Being legal to drive didn't mean you were fit for work and Dick discussed the ups and (mostly) downs of drug-induced mood changes which left an employee "topping up" in order to be able to face work and patently unfit for it. He warned the pattern of post-weekend binge moods and absences might be an indicator of problem behavior.

Fairfax Media had explored options on self-insurance of workplace safety, and Helen Woods - now one of a five-strong audit and advisory team - explained how they set about that and the reduction in lost-time injuries it drove.

Another wellness issue was the need to check regularly for signs of prostate cancer, of which Shepparton News director Chris McPherson died last December and from which the conference identified at least one survivor.

At the end of the day, it was all about working safely so that you (and others) could make it home to mum and the kids in the same shape you'd left.

Perhaps the same attitude led to a somewhat quieter conference than usual, although some Sunday speakers admitted to being a little tender in the morning.

The conference also looked backwards and forwards: To the local print museum delegates visited, to which SWUG has donated $75,000, and forward to the challenge faced by newsprint maker Norske Skog as a result of dwindling demand. Papermaking in Australia and New Zealand is being sustained by reducing capacity, switching a machine to produce LWC, and by ventures such as the processing of wood-fibre pellets.

And by export, to countries such as India where the company's Italo Papasergio points to a print-positive environment as more learn to read, and to modern newspaper plants notable for their cleanliness and culture... a contrast to the country that manroland web sales manager John Ostler had dissed a few years back when the company took on the Manugraph agency.

The event closed with the annual awards dinner, which included nomination of another female press operator, Alex Grose, as apprentice of the year, the awarding of SWUG's $20,000 scholarship to Matthew Richards - a day shift print supervisor at News Corp's Townsville Bulletin site - and the honouring of former Gold Coast Bulletin production manager and SWUG founding president Geoff Austin as a life member. Full awards results and pictures here.

-Peter Coleman

Pictured: Laura Hall says introducing performance and lean production training goes better when a couple of blondes front up to lead it.

On our homepage: Former drugs squad officer Bryce Dick discussed issues with identifying and dealing with alcohol and drugs in the workplace

• Watch www.gxpress.net and March GXpress Magazine for more SWUG reports.