Andy Collins

Toby Lerone, Tess Tickle, Jenny Taylor, Taffy Crisp, Gloria Smellins, Carly Wurly, Seymour Butts, IP Freely, Drew Peacock, Harry Back, Bill Board, Ben Arnour

Last year I cocked up on a large oak, by around half a day, for 3men, luckily it was summer, I had good guys to work with and we stayed and finished late, very late, just had to go and shift the sawdust the next morning. client offered me extra, which I declined, so he gave us £150 bonus, in separate cheques so each man got his own. Which was nice. Very nice. He was a very nice man. Most occasions if I drop one, I break even rather than run at a loss, so it's not too bad as a rule.

Then I shall bow out gracefully, having had a say and contributed to the thread in I hope a constructive manner.

But money raised from deposits, let's say £5 per book x10 books is another book for the shelf every 6 weeks, the club gains, Tonys happier cos he has more books to send out, the members gain cos they have a better selection, please tell me what's wrong with that?

Stop putting up barriers Tony, the book club is a good idea, but you do need some basic rules and stuff in place. I know you believe in karma, but not everyone is like you. Personally I would run it as a business, but that's me

If the average price of a book is £50, then 10% is only a fiver for 6 weeks that's less than a pound a week, come on that's cheap!!

I think even so a deposit is in order, and not unreasonable in the scheme of things. A non return deposit would help "manage" your books, invest in new ones towards the collection, and replace damaged and lost books, everyone's a winner I would also have a book club membership, so you have on file each club members details, and restrict lending to those members, it wouldn't be that hard or time consuming once you've put the system in place. You could then email out a reminder on say the fifth week that the loan period is about to expire, and re-loaning will require further booking in the event they haven't finished with it. It is a fantastic idea, and very generous, but fraught with risk of book loss.

I think the deposit idea is a good one, given the value of the books generally. If this were my scheme, I'd need a little more of a guarantee with people. Tony, had you lent me a book towards the end of last year, the last thing I or my family would be worrying about is sending it back, not through rudeness or ignorance, but through the reason that there is more important things in life to worry about. FTR I think its a very good idea, if everyone is honest, which they're not, even libraries have amnesties to get books back!! Just needs the teething problems sorted.

Obviously you have given this a degree of thought, and I therefore concur that indeed yourself and Plippy would be suitable on the catering front

Hi Daniel and welcome to the forum. I would recommend offering your labour for free to see if this really is the kind of work you want to do. It's not an easy job, physical fitness is required, and a dogged detmination that it ain't gonna get you down. If you find you like it, you could join a college course, find an apprenticeship, or pit yourself though the NPTC CS units. Good luck, might pay you to post a thread outlining your needs and see if anyone will give you a day or two.

Plip on Catering....have you gone stark raving mad????? He will eat all of the food, there won't be anything left for the star :biggrin:

Got a problem with it eh? Eh? it's late and I'm kncackered, it'll do

Guess he'll be a while yet, it's a fair trek by rail from here, and he must of hit rush hour.

Nice day, thanks for your help Paul AKA the one and only Silky Fox. top man, anyone looking for a climber to give you a hand Paul won't let you down. Apart from a slight delay out of his control, he made good time from Kew to Sunny Suffolk. Thoroughly recommend Paul, his enthusiasm knows no bounds. Enjoy your supper Paul

SF just send an email to him

Al, if you put something like "Climber, Stafford and surrounding area, looking for work, pm me or call 07*** ******" in the signature below your posts it will pop up every time you make a post, so will constantly remind folk you're looking for work. Good luck in your search for employment

Just bumped into a bloke looking for his lost cat in the fields out the back here, "Here Kitty kitty....oh holy crap!""

Last boot sale I went to was to recover some stuff that was stolen from me, well I didn't go there with that intention but that was what happened. I made a bloody great fuss at him and a crowd built up. I took my stuff and walked off, then rang the police. Everything in the car was stolen, as was the car too. Turned out quite a haul for the local Plod

I cannot believe you didn't paint a target on the green island, then try curling in the chunks of wood near to the bull as possible. So no impressed any more.

I have the JoBeau M300, and thoroughly rate it as a narrow access chipper. It requires common sense to use it, as Stevie outlined above. I've blocked it twice, once I was trying to get too much through at once, and the other time the blades were getting blunt and should have been changed quicker, so both times my own fault. Keep em sharp and the machine, GM or JB, is good for the work, just coz they're small doesn't mean they aren't professional kit

Thanks Craig, that's one of the most important uses of this forum

Looking forward to meeting you Ted.

Apparently the speed awareness courses are very educational, and you can actually learn a lot about yours and others driving from them. A mate of mine had to attend after doing 36 in a 30, he reckoned the course has made him a lot more aware of how he drives, not just the speed he drives at.

I just read in another thread you mentioned having fires is not professional, yet this is? I think we shoukd be more proactive if we wush to be taken seriously in this job. Builders now have a site pretty much enclosed to cause a minimum of nuisance, buildings are scaffolded over and plastic wrapped to prevent dust and falling objects going outside their area. Of course that is OTT for tree work, but prevention is surely better than cure. I like the dust sheet idea too, no different to pulling a vast net across Borders to save handpicking hedge trimming out of shrubs at the end of the day. I know we aren't going to stop everything eating out, but reduction of dust travel saves time for us too.

I've had fires in towns, fires in the country, fires in woods and fires in gardens, and why not. To create a nuisance, it has to be a recorded incident, occurring more than once, theres an old boy up the road burns off leccy wire every day, plumes of black smoke everywhere, but EA can't act as they need some device ini place that measures the pollutants in the air. From the fires being reported to action, it's a couple of days, smokes long gone! how is a fire unprofessional anyway? A fire of clean green material is carbon neutral, you are not burning vast amount of diesel driving a fuel guzzling truck and chipper to site, then the chipper burns even more diesel and pollutes the atmosphere even more, then you have to burn more diesel to cart the chip away, then more to move the chip again, all very environmentally friendly. I will chip, I will have fires, I use either as a tool to get the job done, and you can't do a fry up on a chipper!