Frimsley

To be a pedant, which is my natural state, 30kN does not equal 3000kgs. 30kN is, more or less, the force exerted by gravity on a mass of 3000kg (assuming the mass is on the surface of the earth). Actually, the force exerted on a 3000kg mass is about 29.4kN. As to a 3t brake, that rather depends on what you mean by that. If you mean something capable of exerting a force of 30kN fair enough. But it takes a damn site more than 30kN to stop 3 tonnes dead if it's already moving at speed. Confusion arises because we are basically very sloppy in our use of the terms 'force', 'weight' (which is the force exerted by gravity) and 'mass'. Likewise, we are sloppy with units. kg is a unit of mass, Newton is a unit of force (or weight). If you have a climber with a mass of 75kg hanging still, the force gravity is exerting on them is about 735N, or less than 3/4 of a kN, and rope and krabs will be exerting a similar force to stop him plummeting. If he falls 2m onto the system, the force exerted by the system needs to be sufficient to decelerate him, and that will be very much more. Exactly how much depends on how quickly he decelerates, which depends on a number of things, such as how elastic the rope is.

No, not only AA contractors. At present it is intended to include AAACs, ISA Certified Arbs and Trust Mark registered companies. The point of the comment in the context of this thread is that the AA have been very helpful in getting it going, the ISA very markedly less so. Not helped by the fact that they seem to be tearing themselves apart arguing, resigning and publishing libelous documents that they then have to recall. In fact, I've got so sick of waiting for the ISA to do something that I've just spent rather a lot of my free time over new year, not to say a fair bit on stamps, trying to contact ISA CAs directly. As for Trust Mark, the scheme doesn't really include arborists at present, but I expect it to soon. You won't be delighted to hear, though, that it is the AA that is pushing towards being a Trust Mark registrar. Those schemes were picked because they require ongoing assessment, which I consider to be important in terms of minimising my liability arising from inferred recommendation. It is also easy for me to check a companies claim to be in one of these schemes without too much work or expense. As to setting my own criteria, why? Why splinter and fragment the industry even more. The whole point of the site is to bring together arborists accredited by two, eventually three different schemes. If I set my own criteria, where would it get me? I'll tell you. I would be accused of being elitist, playing God and not consulting with the industry I would have to assess against them, which would involve time and money. I'd have to recover that by charging for the assessment. I would be accused of pricing small companies out of the market Let's look at the last point in a bit more detail. Being listed (by the AA, by the ISA, by Trust Mark or just on www.findtreesurgeons.com) may give you a competetive advantage in some respects. It also increases your costs, which obviously works in the other direction. It is your personal business decision which option you take. Compete by keeping your costs down. Or compete by gaining the accreditation. Your choice, don't blame others for it. I am, in fact, exploring possibilities of getting other tree surgeons in to the directory. But this will involve cost. The question is whether I can come up with meaningful checks that I can undertake at a suitably low cost. If I resolve these issues, I'll certainly let you know.

The HSE increasingly look to the industry to set standards for specific industries by adopting recognised 'good practice', within the broad context of H&S legislation. The most significant piece of law in this instance is the Work at Height Regulations. The HSE have indicated fairly clearly that they consider the current Guide to Good Climbing Practice to be a statement of industry good practice. In fact, I think there may be a forward in book making this point, but I don't have a copy to hand. If you climb according the GGCP then you are doing what you need to to look after your safety and keep on the right side of the HSE. If you don't, then you should be aware that work at height is currently one of the HSE's priority areas for action.

The AA were instrumental in averting an insurance crisis about 5 years ago. They worked with others to set up the Arboricultural Liaison Group, with reps from all the main industry bodies plus Lantra, NTPC, the HSE and the main insurers and worked hard to ensure that premiums didn't shoot up to a point that priced all the small contractors out of the market. It was a lot of behind the scenes work, but had it not happened I suspect that an awful lot of the smaller operators who complain about the AA wouldn't be trading now, or not legally anyway. They actively promote higher standards of tree care and in my experience work hard for their members. I'm a member of both the AA and the ICF and have to say that though it's nice to have the letters after my name that being an ICF member brings, they do very little else for me. OK, you've probably guessed from that that I no longer lug saws up and down trees, so my interests may differ from many here. But something that might relate a bit more to others needs is this: I'm trying to pull together a directory of accredited tree surgeons that combines AA approved and ISA certified. The AA have been extremely helpful, and as a result all the AAACs are listed at http://www.findtreesurgeons.com/. Getting anything out of the ISA, even if it has clear benefits to their members, seems to be like getting blood out of a stone.

Some random thoughts: The ability to climb and manoeuvre around a tree is more to do with strength to weight ratio and agility than with brut upper body strength. If anything, women have an advantage there. Certain jobs do require brut strength. Pick the most appropriate team member for those jobs. I'm not convinced that strength isn't partly a social issue, rather than an an innate physical one anyway. I've travelled a far bit and seen cultures where women do a lot of the physical work. When a truck full of goods arrives in a Turkish village, it's the women who unload it. I once saw a Guatemalan woman struggling to get a large package onto the roof of a bus. A fairly sizeable young American guy offered to help her, then promptly crumpled under its weight! I've worked with people of both genders who are good and people of both genders who are rubbish. And everyone has there strengths and weaknesses - again, match the team member to the job. Personally, as a bloke, there are many situations when I'll squat to pee outside because I feel less conspicuous low down behind that bush.

I guess you're not an AA member then, or don't read your post if you are The AA is embarking on some market research to assess whether it really has the right name, in terms of being recognised by the general public. A quick visit to Google Trends will tell you that whilst in the states people looking for tree work will search on 'Arborist', in the UK they are far more likely to search on 'Tree Surgeon'. Most people in the UK haven't much clue what arboriculture means. The internal debate is likely to focus around should we change our name to something recognised by the public, or should we make more effort to promote understanding of the term 'arboriculture' amongst the public. I'm quite sure there will be strongly held views on both sides.

The company is approved, but must name a manager responsible. I believe if the manager moves on, reassessment is necessary.

We're not talking here about policing members. This is about particular schemes of accreditation, and both organisations do police these in one form or another. AAACs have to reassessed on a regular basis - can't remember how often off the top of my head. And there is a clearly defined complaints procedure. ISA CAs must demonstrate commitment to continuous development by completing the requisite number of CEUs (continued education units) and as I understand it certification is swiftly withdrawn if they don't. It is in the interests of the AA to police the scheme because if they don't the scheme will fall into disrepute and no one will be bothered to enter it. But policing is necessarily limited to periodic reassessment and chasing up complaints. To have a band of roving inspectors running round doing spot checks would be expensive; this cost would be passed on to the contractors and even fewer companies would be able to afford to be assessed. But if you've got a specific issue with an AAAC, grass them up. It doesn't do any of us any good to have dodgy contractors around. Trustmark? But at the moment there are no Trustmark approved scheme operators in the arb sector and the only organisation I'm aware of looking at this is... the AA Going back to the beginning... I actually can't see the problem with the AA taking out full page ads in YP. It's their job to promote the scheme. They charge contractors a fair whack for assessment and continued membership of the scheme and those contractors who choose to go through with it deserve to get value for money. It's business. You make choices. You decide to get your competitive edge by staying small and keeping your overheads down, or you decide to invest in getting yourself through the AAAC assessment, pay your fees, put your prices up to cover those costs but reap the benefits of having the AA spend your money on promoting the scheme. That, folks, is the nature of capitalism. If you want to have a full page ad in YP, go ahead, pay for it. Because that's what AAACs have done. Someone earlier suggested that ordinary members are subsidising promotion of the AAACs. I don't believe this is the case, though I have to admit I haven't checked. But I believe the scheme is pretty much self financing - assessment and promotion are funded by the fees charged to AAACs And by the way, perhaps not one man, transit chipper and dog, but my three nearest AAACs are all fairly small companies. The fourth nearest is Glendale.

Unless the dog is qualified to carry out an aerial rescue such an outfit is unlikely to meet the AA's H&S requirements From a consumer's point of view this is of limited value. The AA scheme also looks at business practices, health and safety policy, insurance, customer care etc. The ISA scheme assesses only arboricultural competence. Neither approach is ideal. Now combining the arb assessment of the ISA scheme with the customer care focused assessment of Trustmark might go somewhere. Perhaps the UK&I chapter should consider becoming a Trustmark accreditation body Colin? Yet another trade organisation is the last thing this industry needs! Our fragmented voice is half our problem.

Bit OT, but folk over on the UKTC seem to like your fungi pics Mr Nutty: http://www.tree-care.info/uktc/archive/2007/msg04725

I should add, having just re-read the OP, that if there is significant crown dieback associated with Meripilus the news is bad. One of the features of M that has caused so much concern is that because it tends to leave the upper side of roots intact and able to conduct moisture there are no above ground symptoms until decay has reached an advanced stage. Go back and take your trowel, but don't do it on a windy day.

If you're dealing with Meripilus then Picus is going to tell you nothing. The only way to find out the extent of the decay is to excavate carefully and have a look. M affects roots, not stem, and it largely affects the underside of roots. You won't find this decay by bashing nails arranged around the stem. The long held view that Beech + Meripilus = fell is being challenged these days and it seems that the two can safely co-exist for some time. But the situation does need monitoring and that means digging about. If the tree's stability is compromised through loss of roots fell it. If it isn't yet then do everything you can to help the tree to compartmentalise the decay. Mulching may help. What definately won't help is crown reduction. Cutting foliage out is not going to increase the tree's vitality - it will stress it. The tree will divert resources to replacing that foliage rather than compartmentalising the fungus. You will accelerate the tree's decline. The only benefit of reduction is that you reduce the loading on the roots, but if they're shot enough to need that it's too late. Fell and replace

Nice new look guys. Who did the design?

I think the section you actually quoted from Buzz's letter probably refers to the fact that they were being asked to cut a beech tree in half. I hope this is considered poor arboricultural practice no matter which side of the pond you are. Don't the ISA have a 'Why topping is bad' campaign? As to permits to remove trees, in this particular case the trees were on someone else's land, so at the very least you need permission from the land owner. The UK also has a system for protecting particularly important trees and you need to get permission to work on such trees. There's information about this here: Protected trees

Well it certainly doesn't seem like folk round here are short of opinions, so I thought I'd throw out the offer of a space to rant and see what comes in. At tree-care.info there's a section called The Soapbox. The idea is that we invite contributions from suitably opinionated members of the industry. So if anyone has a subject, arb related, that they are passionate about and want to write a short rant about, PM me with an email address we'll sort something out.

Another excellent source of Arb books is Jo Ryan's Treesource.

I'll reply to a few your points... No I'm not a committee member. Nor a member of staff or any such thing. I am an AA member and I do make an effort to engage with the AA. The AA is an organisation of members. What happens is what members make happen. If you do not join and engage then what you want will not happen. Who died and made them God? In the end, if you don't engage, you did Can you quote me one instance where the AA have dictated what you should and shouldn't do without consultation? I just don't think they have that power. As for EL insurance, I'm sorry if you felt condescended, but it would appear from your response that you were unaware of the crisis that faced the industry at the time, which is interesting in itself. Let me fill you in. Four or five years ago (or was it longer - time flies) the cost of insurance started to rise astronomically. Partly this was a rise across the board that was the aftermath of 9/11 and underwriters needing to recover the huge losses they made there. But rises were greater for arbs, and particularly for EL insurance. This was because the whole industry was being tarred with the brush used for the dodgier end of the industry, which has a poor safety record. Insurers did not discriminate. No matter what your safety record, if you were an arborist you were a high risk. Things got to the point where it looked as if before long the only arborist who would be able to continue trading were the really big companies, the Glendales etc, and really dodgy ones who don't bother with such things as insurance. A lot of hard work went in to resolving this. Had it not you would probably not be trading as an arborist now. Not legally with EL in place at any rate. And who asked these organisations to work on this? The members did. This was an issue that threatened the whole industry - the members of the industry bodies - and the members wanted action. If you don't like working in organisations, that fair enough, don't do it. But accept that there are implications to shunning the AA/ISA/TCIA or whatever. Make your choice, take the implications and stop moaning.

The leaflet was put together by the Arboricultural Liason Group and financed by the member organisations. Who are the ALG? A group representing most of the organisations in our rather fragmented industry, plus the HSE and main insurers, pulled together during the crisis in arborists employers liability insurance a few years ago. Yes, that's all the organisations you seem to hate working together to make sure EL insurance prices didn't put you out of business. Arboricultural Association Forestry Contracting Association Institute of Chartered Foresters ISA Lantra NTPC National Association of Tree Officers Tree Care Industries Association Health and Safety Executive I don't see why that's cheating. I don't see what the advantage is either, it's a similar process whether the APL or the AA do your Trustmark assessment. But if you do, be sure to let me know so that I can list you at tree-care.info

Let's be clear here. Tree-care.info will list ISA Certified Arborists and AA Approved Contractors. Having the AA Tech Cert will not get you listed unless you are also an AA Approved Contractor. This decision was based on the industry wide leaflet "Choose your Arborist" produced a couple of years ago as a joint effort by all industry bodies, the HSE and the major insurers. What sets the ISA Certified Arborist scheme apart from other qualifications is the requirement for continuing education through CEUs, and it was on this basis that it was included in the Choose your Arborist leaflet. tree-care.info do not have the resources to assess the competence of arborists on an ongoing basis. So we list only those who are recognised by schemes that do require ongoing assessment. We will also be listing companies that are Trustmark registered once the Trustmark scheme is extended to arborists - expected soon. I have to say that the ISA Cert Arb scheme is the one I'm least happy about including on tree-care.info; it is there because it was in "Choose your Arborist". My problem is that we're not just aiming to list good arborists, but companies with good, customer focused business practices. The AA Approved Contractor assessment looks at business practice, as will Trustmark, but the ISA scheme does not. Doesn't help that it's proving difficult to collate a list of ISA Certified Arbs who are available for instruction, but that's another story...