Chainsaw refresher, a scam?

[Spruce Pirate]

1 minute ago, openspaceman said:

Good, I did it three years ago and my last commercial climbing with saw was 3 or 4 years before that. I don't mind doing a bit of groundwork and did sit in with a group of chaps doing their initial cross cut and fell about 6 years ago.

 

The trouble with these refreshers is at over £150  a time and up to 2 days off work there is no way you can amortise the cost as you get older and looking to take it easy.

 

7 minutes ago, Mark Bolam said:

Serious question -

What happens when you’ve got all the tickets?

Would you then have to refresh them all?

 

That could get a bit spendy.

 

Can't speak for the arb side of things, but forestry is a 3 - 5 year refresher.  3 years if part time saw use, 5 years if it's full time saw use.  Have to refresh the "highest ticket", so in my case windblow.  Could be small trees or large trees depending on which tickets you hold.  The refresher course is only one day, and cost should be around £125 - £150 (at least that's what I've been quoted and told others have paid).

 

There does seem to be a bit of confusion as to whether or not refreshing a windblow ticket actually counts as refresher for tree felling, but at the moment that seems to be the case and long may it continue as otherwise we'll be doing more refreshing than we will work!  And, yes, it will get a bit spendy!

 

Is it all a scam?  In my opinion yes.  It is all dressed up as keeping us safe and healthy, but the reality is that it is a scheme designed to keep company directors from having to face corporate manslaughter charges if something goes tits up and trainers have seen an opportunity to expand their revenue stream (I could be a lot less polite about trainers).  A safe cutter will still be safe at the end of a refresher course and a dangerous cutter will still be dangerous at the end of a refresher course, all that will have been achieved is that both will be a bit poorer.

 

 

 

Good work slipping "amortise" into a post.

[Mark Bolam]

Luckily I’m starting up my own course soon - CS69 ‘Avoiding gender assumption in the workplace’.

This will automatically refresh all your tickets. You will get a bit of paper signed by me to confirm this.

Cost will be £100 per candidate, plus VAT.

Refreshments available throughout this intensive 6-hour course, until the bar closes, I mean until the course concludes.

[spuddog0507]

44 minutes ago, Spruce Pirate said:

 

 

Can't speak for the arb side of things, but forestry is a 3 - 5 year refresher.  3 years if part time saw use, 5 years if it's full time saw use.  Have to refresh the "highest ticket", so in my case windblow.  Could be small trees or large trees depending on which tickets you hold.  The refresher course is only one day, and cost should be around £125 - £150 (at least that's what I've been quoted and told others have paid).

 

There does seem to be a bit of confusion as to whether or not refreshing a windblow ticket actually counts as refresher for tree felling, but at the moment that seems to be the case and long may it continue as otherwise we'll be doing more refreshing than we will work!  And, yes, it will get a bit spendy!

 

Is it all a scam?  In my opinion yes.  It is all dressed up as keeping us safe and healthy, but the reality is that it is a scheme designed to keep company directors from having to face corporate manslaughter charges if something goes tits up and trainers have seen an opportunity to expand their revenue stream (I could be a lot less polite about trainers).  A safe cutter will still be safe at the end of a refresher course and a dangerous cutter will still be dangerous at the end of a refresher course, all that will have been achieved is that both will be a bit poorer.

 

 

 

Good work slipping "amortise" into a post.

pretty sure refreshing your windblown should do all tickets below, if it doesent i will be pissed off, as it will have to be 2 refreshers one for felling and one for windblown, but as we know there is more to cutting windblown than meets the eye, i will have to look in to this as i think i am up about march, ish,

[Stubby]

I used my saw at the weekend . Never done a refresher in my life .

[openspaceman]

1 hour ago, Stubby said:

I used my saw at the weekend . Never done a refresher in my life .

It's not a problem if you never are involved in an accident investigation or work for big civils firms.

 

I work for a bloke  that's been a one man band for 35 years and he doesn't have a chainsaw certificate at all and not been pulled up yet.

 

When I was in a position to ask him to quote for work I asked him to provide certificate and insurance and he couldn't prove competence to operate a chainsaw so I took him off the list.

Edited November 6, 2018 by openspaceman

[Stubby]

8 minutes ago, openspaceman said:

It's not a problem if you never are involved in an accident investigation or work for big civils firms.

 

I work for a bloke  that's been a one man band for 35 years and he doesn't have a chainsaw certificate at all and not been pulled up yet.

 

When I was in a position to ask him to quote for work I asked him to provide certificate and insurance and he couldn't prove competence to operate a chainsaw so I took him off the list.

He probably could prove competence to operate a chainsaw if you had asked him to fell , sned , cut to length and stack ....

[Stuart Phillips]

9 hours ago, Spruce Pirate said:

Can't speak for the arb side of things, but forestry is a 3 - 5 year refresher.  3 years if part time saw use, 5 years if it's full time saw use.  Have to refresh the "highest ticket", so in my case windblow.  Could be small trees or large trees depending on which tickets you hold.  The refresher course is only one day, and cost should be around £125 - £150 (at least that's what I've been quoted and told others have paid).

The push for refreshers is from the HSE's PUWER ACoP (Reg 9 paragraph 124 if you want to look it up) and the specifics for chainsaw is in the HSE guide INDG317 Chainsaws at Work (page 6).  This is also where the 3 and 5 year recommendation can be found. 

This 3 / 5 year recommendation has led to a compliance based approach to refresher training.  That is to say, no matter how incompetent someone is with a saw, if they have done a refresh within the last 5 years it will all be okay. (or possibly not).

The push more recently (and more sensibly) has been toward encouraging a  risk based approach to refresher training.  That would mean that there are still planned refreshers, but concentrating on higher risk activities, or doing something like hung up trees before starting a contract clearing a site with a lot of snagged trees in it.

The risk based approach is more difficult to manage for contracts, as it doesn't put a neat tick in a box. so the 3/5 year requirement is stuck into contracts. 

Up-skilling is a good option, if its a skill you are likely to use, and if its a skill that does refresh other units.  It can, in some contexts, become yet another thing to refresh in the future.

 

 

[It is often said ( and is in this thread) that there is no required refresher for driving... having driven into the office today, and seen the antics of some of the idiots on the road, perhaps there should be.]

[Khriss]

12 hours ago, Steve Bullman said:

Theres certainly been a few incidents caught on camera lately that maybe, just maybe could have been avoided with refresher training.  Then again probably not

You can't legislate stupidity out of people Steve. I would support refresher training but not necessarily NPTC based. Organised an aerial rescue refresher morning last year and it was astounding how much the lads had forgot. Was a good laff and revealed stuff to the lads they didn't know or had to think abt in a danger situation. Well worth doing it properly, documenting it fr HSQ an putting it in their files. K

[Steve Bullman]

3 minutes ago, Stuart Phillips said:

[It is often said ( and is in this thread) that there is no required refresher for driving... having driven into the office today, and seen the antics of some of the idiots on the road, perhaps there should be.]

i'd absolutely agree with that

[Countryboy]

14 hours ago, Mark Bolam said:

Luckily I’m starting up my own course soon - CS69 ‘Avoiding gender assumption in the workplace’.

This will automatically refresh all your tickets. You will get a bit of paper signed by me to confirm this.

Cost will be £100 per candidate, plus VAT.

Refreshments available throughout this intensive 6-hour course, until the bar closes, I mean until the course concludes.

I pit my name down for the course