Cheapest way of cs30, 31 & 32

[Andrewmpalmer2003]

Hi I understand that these are the first courses to be aspired for anyone venturing into the tree surgery game.

 

I have looked into these courses at the 2 local colleges to me (capel manor and writtle), are these the cheapest places to complete these courses, or do I have other options.

 

Ps I run a small gardening commercial and domestic, but over the past 2 years I have slowly got into very minor tree surgery. I have no formal quals as yet.

 

My Exp is as follows, full time firefighter so hence H & S is paramount, I have all the ppe, and only do stuff unto 20ft max, and have just purchased a tw13/75g to help. I have our in depth First aid course, that's a joke calling it first aid it's written by the LAS and a very in depth 3 day course, not that I plan to put it to use with a chainsaw injury.

 

Anyway I'd like to have some formal quals behind me, just in case that little acorn grows faster than I liked it to...

 

Any replies would be much appreciated.

 

Andrew

[G'day Spruce]

£918 just for CS30/31 at Capel Manor, it's less than £650 up here with this guy Chainsaw Training with Phil Dunford : COURSES FOR PROFESSIONAL USERS (Lantra Awards training course leading to a QCF qualification/licence to practice) .

 

You would probably be better off with CS38/39 than CS32.....

[Gnarlyoak]

For your purposes I would suggest you could just do CS30/31 for now. If your going to be felling anything bigger than a "small" tree at this stage, you would be better getting in someone with experience. Even some small tree's may require some climbing & dismantling before the stem can be felled.

 

So at some point CS38/39 (or whatever the new certification is now) will be necessary if you intend to really get into tree work.

 

As for costs of course and assessments, they is what they is. There are usually no quick cheap fixes to be had in this area. Assessment costs are fixed, and set by the assessment body, NPTC; LANTRA. Might save a few pounds on training costs if you shop around and are prepared to travel.

 

Must be nice to have a full time job, a guaranteed civil service pension; a gardening business on the side and still some free time to do some tree work. Do you think there would be any opportunities out there for myself and other hardworking treemen to run our own fire service on the side and be freelance police officers on our evenings off?

 

Not having a pop mate, we live in a free capitalist society, so each to there own. But, if your interested, I'll be eating dinner around 6pm so if you'd like to take some food of my table and watch the kids go hungry. Feel free.

 

Not really, have'nt got any kids.

 

Eaten them already.

 

Tasted like chicken.

 

All the best.

[Andrewmpalmer2003]

I'll take all those last comments with a pinch of salt. However, I will come back with a few paragraphs, it obviously unsettled your nerves, or you wouldn't of written them.

 

I do not run a fire service or am not the chief fire officer of the LFB on mega bucks - I'm merely a hose squirter and have been for 5.5 years. I tried 7 times to get in. I work very hard on a 2 days, 2 nights, 4 off shift, helping those who get into unfortunate situations - sometimes having to put my life in danger - so please pay me an ounce of respect for that.

 

My full time job gives me £32k. I don't feel is a great wage, to irk life, travel into London and live here in the Home Counties, but I accept I chose that career to help people and like many public sector wages they don't pay a wage to reflect the cost of living here.

 

As for having a tree company as well as gardening, I could never do it all. I know a full on tree outfit must be 50k, by the time you have vehicle, chipper, equipment, courses etc. I'm merely just enquiring to be safe and sound for the small bit I do.

 

Anyway myself and my wife hope you were just jesting....I attended a RTA (road traffic accident) only last week involving a local large tree surgery co. near me. I actually rang the Guv of that co. to ask how his blokes were. Good job I never asked for advice from him, I may have got a mouthful about taking grub from his men's mouth...

 

I know most of joe public don't like that some public sector workers have a few days to earn an extra quid. My wife is a secondary school teacher and gets regular stick for the holidays she gets. We both hold the opinion that everyone else had the choice to go into teaching/brigade... She is about to leave teaching to focus on our one year old and hopefully our growing family. It is for those reasons I want to earn a tad more. Nothing major. Do not, however, knock me for my work ethic of working any spare minute to help bring up my family a little better in life. Maybe some of the dossers in this country need to take a leaf from my book.

 

Anyway, as Cameron says, "We're all this together..."

[fuda]

Nice quote.

Fair play to you i say mate,

Life is like a game of cards its how you play them depends on the outcome.

[Commando]

Absolutely unbelievable!! Chap come onto the forum for a bit of advice and gets treated like that. And the best bit, you tried to make a joke of it, at least have the moral fibre to back up your veiled speech. Only thing missing was some sort of gibe about 'southerners nicking all our work'. Andrew mate, cracking work ethic...wish a few more people in our great country had the same.

I wish I could offer you some advice but i'm just a poor former serviceman with a gold plated pension who's never done a hard day's work in his life!! Good luck with your plans.

[eddiegts]

Andrew well said! Best of luck with getting your tickets ( have a look at Fox forestry) better go as I am busy working out my x serviceman pension ;-)

[jamiep]

Hi Andrew,

 

I'm ex fire & rescue too (Gloucestershire), had to leave after 15 years due to the nature of the job and what we have to see and do. There are a lot of people about who have absolutely no idea what it takes to do that job and they probably couldn't/wouldn't do it anyway so take no notice of people who aren't fit to judge you mate.

Can't offer much advice about the quals other than just go and do them as there isn't a great variation in prices wherever you go so just get stuck in and enjoy, all the best,

 

Jamie

[Drummond8]

Hi mate,

 

I m brand new to the forum so don't know how much help I can be but I ll try ha ha. I'm in a similar situation in that I'm a police officer in London and have been looking to re locate to devon with a complete career change 11 years and enough is enough.

 

I ve been looking at the nptc courses and how best to do them etc. I dunno where your based mate but I m sussex and the prices I ve looked at and been quoted were a good few hundred less than your £918. Try plumpton or ESUS forestry and woodland. The guy at esus was really helpful they do the cs30 and cs31 together starting Thursday, weekend break and then mon to Wednesday. They work through East Sussex and Kent I believe.

 

Have you looked at any distance learning stuff for the theory side, I find its a minefield trying to work out what's what.

 

Anyway mate good luck

[Paul Cleaver]

see if you can buk in with someone for the training part - that will save you a few quid