Lee Winger

HEY HEY HEY keep your language down! I'll have you know i'm very fond of proper pollarding, and so is the site owner ain't that right Steve? Nothing wrong with ''proper'' pollarding, its BS topping wrongly titled pollarding that gets my goat..

give us a clue what county? and which 3 days?

All I know is the fruit smell terrible, a bit like shite, so of course as you would I ate some! [not the fruit the kernal/nut, i'm not that silly, saying that I did try Durian] in a chinese soup in Chinatown Sydney, very nice,if a bit bland.. I remember reading that they rarely set fruit in the UK..

Looks like us boys in Suffolk and Essex are getting well and truely stung

Assesments for free or should I say part of the course pricing? if so I like the sound of that..

Yes they do! but aren't we all led to believe that unless we have NPTC certs we aren't properly/fully qualified? I was told by the HSE that as long as my subbies and emplyes had training for the work they do it doesn't matter if its is NPTC, NVQ, City and Guilds phase 2 arboriculture or whatever, so why so much emphasis on NPTC? Just to throw a spanner in the works imo nobody should attempt to put a saw to a tree unless they have formal quals in tree bioligy etc ha ha ha ha that got you all going.....

whats wrong with a course that lasts two years [2-3 days a week] ticket/tickets at the end and priced reasonably?

For the record the only people i'll ever train up again are my kids!

Sparsholt offers a keen price add a couple of hundred for these parts, thats where I get my £800, don't forget to add wages, and MY loss of earnings ie non productive employe for a week, anyway lets say you have 6 peeps on a course thats £900 a day not bad for 1 tutor and not a lot else! expensive wouldn't you agree? some of the training providers around here don't even provide a decent site/trees to fell, one chap employed by myself cut his teeth on felling blackthorn! I was disgusted to say the least I'll tell you one thing I don't know how much you guys think us contractors charge, but rarely do we get £900 per day for 3 men, lorry and chipper, climbing gear, insurance , quals etc etc some of the lads on here struggle to get £300 a day for 2 men, chipper and transit.. So to answer your question ''what does the cost relate too'' i'd say quite a bit!

oh dear....

Well that would be down to the firm to judge if the employe is competent enough to re-wire my house, i'm sure a reputable company would oversea the work of a newb, If I opted for the cheapest quote and a kid straight out of college then i'd say its my tough luck if the house burns down ...

The below courses are reasonably priced, NPTC why so much more expensive??????? http://www.capel.ac.uk/courses/Arboriculture/courses_list.htm

Refresher courses! further industry advancement!! etc etc etc BS! what we need to do is get out there and get earning a proper wage! we need to raise the industry profile! we aren't unskilled labourers! stuff the extra traning and inflating of egos! IMO all this rubbish about the NPTC overhaul etc etc is all about putting more money into trainers and NPTC/LANTRA/CITY&GUILDS/ BLAH BLAH BLAH'S pockets, imo there interest is the training industry and not a lot else, and by coming on here and spouting this that and the other, all they are doing is trying to pull the wool over our eyes! Will someone EXPLAIN to me why NPTC courses are so expensive ''compared'' to other trade courses? do you trainers think its acceptable charging the best part of £800 on average to train a person to use nothing more than a chainsaw with a poxy 15'' bar? for the life of me I can't see how NPTC/LANTRA/C&G can warrent such a price! If they had the industries best interests at heart, we would train tree workers the way other trades do, and at a similar costing! other trades pay nowhere near what we pay for training courses!

I was thinking exactly the same thing...

do we have a uk dealer Andy?

I was lucky to be involved in a project like that a few months back, I was the site Arborist, its a weird thing being paid by a developer, yet in theory working for the council and of course the trees I spent most of my time saying no...

Very good point....

My guess from reading the above posts is, most of you don't pay for your own tickets! if you did you'd get your heads out of the clouds!!!!!!!!!!! Recording CPD my rear end, ha like I/we haven't got enough paperwork.... Proper old school apprenticeships thats all we need..

don't forget lots of padlocks and wheel clamps, Woolwich is a horrible place!

Now thats what you call a 4x4, still not a Landcruiser but close

Nobody in the bush runs standard air intake, i'd like to see a new Defender go through those floods, mine leaked like a siv with drizzle let alone 3' of water..

don't forget he got some form of pox as well

When the going gets tough only the toughest will do, Hi-Lux all the way! I used to live in this town Wyong NSW [ame] [/ame]

All the best Jonesie, make a good and speedy recovery mate.

Yehh maaaan jelly coconut!, we get them over here, they dip them in wax to keep them fresh, I always open them up the wrong way round...