kipperfeet

Depends on wether you want to learn about trees or pass an exam i guess. If you only want to do it with the intention of passing an exam then you will get far less out of it than doing it because you genuinly want to learn about tree's. Depends on what drives you as well, and on-line stuff does require a lot more self discipline than other ways of learning. If you don't have the time, or discipline or need to learn about the industry and how nature works then you will undoubtably fail and feel it a waste of time. If you live the job and have a good back ground in the industry, which is what it was designed for then it will be easier therefore more interesting and less of a chore. What ever you do or where ever you do it, think about what you want out of it before you part with cash and valuable time. good luck and enjoy.

A Colleague of mine was running a course in a woodland close to where we were running a course last week and had a gent collapse on him whilst training for c.s.31. The guy collapsed for no identifiable reason and was not cutting at the time thankfully so no blood. On first instincts it looked like he had had a heart attack so the emergency services were called straight away. Bear in mind the woodland is in the middle of no where on the moors of Lancashire, closest town being Bolton. We are pretty on the ball with our risk assessments and emergency procedure plans and all sites we work on we have the nearest hospital, nearest road access, nearest post code, grid reference and gps coordinates for our exact location and the nearest helecopter landing place identified. This is taken from a gps we carry with us and used in remote locations. With in 6 minutes of a phone call - YES 6 MINUTES the guy was in the hands of paramedics and being carried to an air ambulance in a feild next to the woods and within 15 minutes was in the Bolton A and E. Firstly, i think the response time and the service that air ambulances provide to remote access places is amazing and very, very commendable. Secondly, bear in mind that the information that we had on our site specific risk assessment was crucial to getting the chopper to us in an outstanding time, with out it it may have taken much much longer. The guy, it turns out did not have a heart attack but a blood clot to the brain and is now recovering well but if that information was not spot on and the ambulance wasn't so quick in getting to us then a lot more paperwork would be needed to fill in and a phone call to the next of kin may have been the next step. Thanks to the Lancashire air ambulance service, The yanks for GPS satalites and us for being good boys and filling in our risk assessments accurately. Just thought i would share this as proof that one day you may need emergency procedures and it does work. If put your change in charity box's in shops, put it in an Air Ambulance box next time, you may need it one day.

Bit of bad press at the moment with the aa tech cert as it was ran last year by someone who left half way through the course and got picked up by another person who left not so far after. The exam was quite hard and the person who wrote it put questions in it that were not in the teaching sylubus hence many people failing it and feeling disgruntled by not learning the right things to pass the exam, quite rightly so. The exam writer in question has since been asked not to write again the word is on the grape vine, and the course tutor has done a massive amount of work to re jig the resources and prepare for this year and next so it will be much beter than previous people may give feed back on. best to give the college a ring and ask to speak to the tutor for more info. I hear that tree life are also very good but not sure if they do it online.

Now that is very cool!

If you dress up as a girl, LANTRA will give you £600 towards training!:008: (Sorry, its the only smiley i could find with a girl in it but its quite funny so i did it twice.) We have to sign a contract for CPD to pay back a percentage if we leave over a certain period of time where i work. Fair enough if a company is investing in your cv and skills for future employers.

We have some Husqvarna all rounders that are tiny, look like childrens ones. not sure where they came from though as there quite old. You can get them just not sure where? I had a girl ask me the other day actually, she is 5.2" and is struggling to get them. She also needs boots in size 4. If you find any, let me know. I am having a ring round on Monday to try and source some smaller stuff too So if i find any i'll let you know.

Fair play to the man, some fool might by it. Be a swine to transplant though. I might put the betula jaqmontii in my garden on for £1000. Any takers?

Sounds good Drew, Have a bevvie and rooty tootoot for me. Last saw the Prodigy in 1993. Bit of a different crowd to the 2009 NZ crowd i bet. I did see the Sex pistols in Auckland years ago though. In a big tent some where, all the local punks were there with spikey mohawks and chains etc. Dead funny as we speant most of the gig taking runups and body slamming them. Poor buggers didn't know what to do!

We did a small apple tree in an old couples garden years ago, hour job at most and got full cooked dinner, two mugs of tea and cake, and she made us take the rest of the cake with us in foil because she "always bakes one if tradesmen are comeing" We had to make excuses and get gone to the next job in the end because we were all stuffed! Love old folk, there great.

I saw that at the woodfest in 07 and have almost excacly the same picture. Must have been stoodnext to you Tommytreecarver.

Change piston rings and Crank bearings at 1000hrs! Wow, not heard that one before!

"Charging Students to inspect new Kit", that is terrible:sneaky2:. I inspect students kit prior to use and give them certification so it's covered to use during college time and if they get work, and i inspect kit for free to all students even when they are working because they get ripped off enough as it is in my opinion. It is, as Andy says, only an inspection at the time of inspection and the paper work that is issued may completely change the next week as the kit gets used. If a rope gets cut or a karrabiner dropped, just because the report says it was fine 2 months ago, it does not mean it is fine now. Thats why the daily inspection pre use is part of the legislation. If kit is involved in adverse situations then, technically it should be re-inspectd by a loler inspector before re-using. Surely insurance companies are asking for loler records to cover employers liability etc? Seen some absolutely shocking bits of kit from some very reputable companies out there. Still amazes me sometimes what people will put there lives on during a day at work. For the price of a new Karrabiner:scared1: Not saying that you should buy new kit every time it gets dirty but our equipment does take a real battering in a short space of time.

Top handles on the floor is only against current guidance, not illegal. Couldn't be arrested for nipping the odd branch here and there when the 26 is blunt! In the case of an accident with one on the deck i'm sure the hse would prosecute though as it is against current guidance Be carefull What you say, it may well be the future (electric chainsaws) if were not carefull. Looks good though, may be we will be sending the saw down for a new battery and not refueling! No smelly two stroke smoke, no exhaust to melt your clothes, no power to finish that back cut super fast before it splits out! Makita must be stupid to aim this at that market and not put a rear handle on it. How are people supposed to be as safe as possible and adhear to guidance if the manufacturers are making this stuff to sell to people who don't know any better.

My last little blighter that wee'd on me was right at the top af a 60ft pine, but had edged it's way out right on the end and kept getting further away a si got closer. It put up such a fight and didn't want to come, i genuinly thought i was going to drop it. When i did get it, thats when i felt my legs go warm and then held it out at arms length to finish it's buissiness! Didn't charge the guy despite him offering as it was just nice to save the cat that 2 other gangs and the fire service could not do. Should of though really cause i stank of cat wee for the rest of the day! I have pictures of where it was and it weeing some where, the groundie thought it was so funny, he photographed it. If i new how to put photo's up, i would. Good vid by the way Peter.

We usually turn Huskys down to about 12500 for the first few hours use and then turn it back up to 13600 ish. Smaller huskys tend to like reving fast after running in and seem to love the fast pace lifestyle. Speaking to forestry commission guys, they seem to do the same with 346's and swear by running in. Stihl technical guy always tells us to do it with a tacho to get it bob on because they are so finely tuned these days that even 2-300 rpm above recomended could shorten the engines life dramatically. He also said that there in no way on earth a person could guess its rpm by ear within 2-300rpm. If it's your own saw then maybe best ask you dealer, if he is any good.

Rescued quite a few. The last one had been up there 6 days and the fire service had two attempts to get it down, the council tree gang had a go, a local contractor had a go and then the RSPCA rang us and we went. It took me twenty minutes to get to it, managed to grab it (no collar so tricky not to drop it) and the damn thing wee'd on me! Got it to the ground and it bolted across the road nearly getting squished! Would have been ironic if it had got squished. The owner was chuffed to bits though so a happy ending.

Give topcat on here a shout, think it is one of his.

If i were you, i would leave my options open and look at whats on the market. If you set your ideas on one type then you limit your choice of whats available at the time. Basically you want a 4x4 double cab of a certain age to do a certain job. Go and look at whats available, drive them and take each one on its own merits not its make. If you tie yourself to getting only a hi lux then there maybe only 3 or 4 for sale and they all might all be dogs but if you look at 3 l200 4 navaras 3 rangers 2 mazda and 4 hi - lux the chance of one or two being good are much higher. Don't buy anything from a tree surgeon though, chances are its been worked harder than most. Whach out for Landys too, at that price there all dogs. Just through my experience in 4x4 buying, it's a mine feild though so good luck.

Mate of mine his unit cleared out a month ago and they took his kits and rigging stuff as well! Not sure what they would do with a lowering bollard and capstens but very annoying as its worth nothing to them but everything to us.

Whats a Hakki Pilke? Sorry for the ignorance.

I went down one when i was dead wooding some trees that zip lines were tied up in at Lakeside on Windermere a while back. I finished the tree and decides to zip down the steel cable to get in to the other tree it was attatched too to deadwood that. So i clipped on with a petzle fixed cheek alloy pulley expecting it to zip down super fast. In fact, to my horror, the shards of alloy that came off the pully on the steel line was very worrying. I thought i was going to be on the rivits in a matter of seconds! Stopped in the middle about 30feet from the end and 30feet up and had to lower myself on my rope which one of the lads had to throw up to me. Cacked my pants and felt very silly for using an alloy pulley. Safety went out of the window momentarily for the sake of a quick thrill. Oops

How are the stein jackets holding out for climbing in? Are they altura cycling tops? I saw some in Go outdoors the other day for £25 that looked very similar.

MK1 vw caddy pickup. ran on the sniff an oily rag and i never put a spanner to it. Had 278,000 on the clock when i sold it and it's the worst thing i ever did - sell it that is. Missed it so much i bought another recently just for fun. Surprising what you can get in the back and did 50mpg easy.

Trees unlimited stock it in Leeds. Give them a ring and ithey can help.

Well, i've been using the Fiskars Maul for a week or so to get rid of the backlog of splitting i wanted to do and i can say, it is fantastic and does it's job very well. Well balanced and tough as old boots so far. Splits really nicely. So thanks for the advice.