Who is not qualified...?

[arbogrunt]

hmmm, interesting thread!...I've got my city and guilds in Arb (distinction). My original plan was to go on and get an HNC. I quickly realised it would do me personally, no good at all, being qualified past craft level. If I had an HNC I wouldn't want to be pushing a broom and rake at the end of each day

When I worked as a freelancer, I was rarely asked for any tickets or quals and no customer has ever asked in 19 years. At the end of the day, what is a good climber?...someone who is good at pruning/rigging/felling?....or someone who is so quick, he can earn you a days money by lunchtime?...people have different ideas of what a 'good job' is...I see some excellent treework locally...and some diabolical attempts...its all about pride in the job and/or pound notes depending on what your outlook is!

[csservices]

Some interesting points being made, thing is, you don't need a course to teach you to id trees or fungi, you can read a book, difference is if you do the course you can show a box ticker a piece of paper that says you attended a course, but unless you see them at different times of year in different weather different seasons etc you won't always be sure and thats where experience comes in, same with cutting trees, no two are the same you need the experienc eto read the tree, to know which way it to fell it safely etc, I know my experience is mostly in hedge laying, but I could'nt stand in front of hedge and say to someone else, cut that out, lay that etc, I have to be doing it, its very hard to explain 22 years of experience in all types of hedges to someone else its a job you have to learn yourself and I guess its the same with trees, you can learn the basics on a course but until you do it and learn what works and what doesnt you won't know, because you cant always have someone following you round telling you how to do the job, two things I always remember being told, 1) The man who says he knows everything knows nothing, and 2) if you don't learn something everyday your doing something wrong

[Eddy_t]

So are you an arborist?

 

You missed parasitic

 

And you don't need that to call yourself an arborist, the same way you only need a trowel and a line to call yourself a bricklayer

 

Not any more, I've moved into greenkeeping, and I forgot parasitic fungi. I like to keep a hand in with tree work, I do it as a side line, but as I trained in conservation first, that is where my main focus lies, and the techniques that are in woodland management interest me greatly, as much has been lost over the years

 

 

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[sandy2210]

got cscs roads & streetworks 4 different digger tickets dumper roller f/lift first aid slinger/signaler, banksman, confined spaces, mewp etc etc but one that beats them all came today ticket that says I can fit a dust mask properly!!!! at the end of the day they are all just get out of jail cards for the directors of the company I work for during the week

the company paid for them all and with all the grants ect the training dept was one of the most profitable bits of the company

[agg221]

Training and qualifications are an interesting field.

 

In my professional field I am highly qualified, through formal, accredited training. I hire people who are similarly qualified, and arrange a lot of training for my staff to bring them up to a certain level.

 

However, in anything relevant to this forum I have no formal qualifications. I read a lot, absorb as much as I can in the areas of interest to me and once I know enough theory I try to watch what others do (those who I know to be 'good' at what they are doing). From this I improve my ability.

 

I have some areas where I would say I know a reasonable amount. Others where I am better on theory than practice, and some which are complete black holes (fungi being one of the latter).

 

As per a couple of posts on Page 7, I entirely agree that one of the most important things is to know and understand areas of limitation, and to de-risk what you do by doing so. For example, I'm reasonably precise at felling, and have no concerns over size. In the woods I'll take on something with a +/-5deg radius to fell into, take my time over it (not being paid so time isn't an issue) but in a garden I wouldn't touch it - I don't have to and the risk is too high, and I can't climb to dismantle, so I leave it for someone else and maybe get the butt for milling later (which is all I'm interested in in the first place)

 

Alec

[Gary Prentice]

well thats part of it...

 

The thing we have to get our heads round as tree surgeons/arborists/arboriculturists blah blah is that essentially we have been cutting trees for produce reasons for centuries/millenia, its a culture thing.

 

these days things have become a matter of amenity too, and we are all still applying old culture values to a way of thinking about trees that is really outdated for the purposes of amenity and societal health and well being.

 

Trees are more than just logs waiting for harvest, or messy things filling our gutters with leaf, or blocking our light.

 

It doesnt require much imagination to find avenues of income from trees that involve far less detrimental effects and far more beneficial effects from our profit making devoutness.

 

just one example is in the restoration of health in trees, holisticaly via the rhizosphere, there is more demand than you might imagine, but if your only interested in firewood and lumber, or the latest shiny climbing aid your always going to find arbing a limited experience

 

Couldn't agree more, at the pests & diseases seminar last month at Myerscough, Dalgea OCallahan summed this up. His comments were, to paraphrase

 

'For an industry that purposes to care for trees, we don't do much more than cut bits off'

[WorcsWuss]

I'm not, bar some nptc tickets, nor do I need to be for what I do, but I quite fancy the RFS cert in ARB, 1 year online, £455 + reg fee through Myerscough. Not a massive investment but I reckon it would give me a better understanding of what I see and read.

I dislike qualification for its own sake, but if it furthers knowledge I don't see how it can be a bad thing....