Do you ever get assessed on your climbing?

[will.morris]

At Asplundh today all the crews on the south auckland contract spent the day having our climbing assessed by the fleet supervisors. We had to do an 18metre footlock, 2 work climb trees and an aerial rescue each whilst the powers that be stood in observation with a clip board. We were given no warning about it as we only got told when we got to the yard, the assessments involved inspecting our kit so I suspect thats why it was just thrown upon us.

 

It was a pretty intense thing to be thrown in on as I've only done 4 weeks work here so far! Did alright though and everything went my way for the rescue to me relief as I'm sure thats something that they'd like to see.

 

I wondered if any of you guys big firms or small private companies ever get randomly tested or test you staff?

 

( It was essentially a paid days rec climbing but with a serious edge and the company bought dominoes pizza for everyone )

[Ewan Murray]

No but it is a good thing to do, we are implementing more aerial rescue practice at my work which i think is a good idea, glad you got on okay.

[RobArb]

I'd be screwed on the footlocking!

 

Sent from my Galaxy S2

[Taupotreeman]

I know that the larger outfits run regular safety days which include aerial rescue from both rope and bucket but an 18m footlock sounds a little excessive to me. I don't know of anyone else who does this and it sounds more like someone power tripping but that's only my opinion.

[will.morris]

They don't do it to this extent very often apparently but we do aerial rescue once a month, only 1 crew on site though no supervisors/group meets. No set dates either we just fit it around the work and tell the supervisors when we do it. I had to do one about 40ft up a huge park gum, single line rescue on 8mm prussik, feel the burn...

 

Really the rescue today was the only judged category, the work climbs/footlock were just to give the supervisors an idea of what level people are at as we have a few trainees and with me 4 new english guys that they've never seen climb before.

 

Was good fun though, lots of banter (free pizza ) and was cool to see that there are some pretty awesome climbers on our firm... I need to grow a pair if I want to attempt some of the jumps the real good guys were going for

[Taupotreeman]

I hear the RW has been banned at the orange brigade too. Some awesome guys there though. Not many left from when I was there but still a couple I think.

[will.morris]

Yep your correct, not allowed rope wrenchs or steel strops. Not supposed to have vented helmets either but they're not that bothered about that, I get away with my stein. Apart from the top handles you have to use an attached mitt on your left hand, I personally think it makes it more dangerous as you cant throw the saw if you trip or if you had to quickly jump away from a falling tree.

 

Who do you know from Asplundh?

[Andy Collins]

Great stuff, practising AR, everyone should do it, and practise all kinds of scenarios too. When I worked for a AAAC there was a lot of talk about it happening, but the truth was that it didn't earn money, so was never done.

[colemanjessenz]

you have to have a mitt on your climbing saw ?.

wow thats a bit of fun getting a day to do some big swings and practise , but its the first i have heard of it , cant complain i guess .

was it just your outfit?

[Taupotreeman]

Who do you know from Asplundh?

 

Probably only a couple left from when I started back in 98 but there was Wytch, Greg Edwards and I worked for a while with Rick Mexted at Treescape.