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Mark T

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Everything posted by Mark T

  1. Thy shalt always refer to canine poo as "Dog Eggs"
  2. Thy shall always follow up the mandatory acceptance of tea with the phrase "easy on the chocolate biscuits!"
  3. In the interest of both humour and professional development, I pose the following questions: Whats important to tree workers? What must you never do? What must you always do? Here are two suggestions to get things going... Thou shalt never prune back beyond the branch collar. Thou shalt never knowingly drive past an open bakery.
  4. The neighbours should try and talk it through and come to their own agreement in the first instance. Failing this then Hedgeline can help ease problems between parties and find solutions... The last option would be to approach the Local Authority with a High Hedges (section 8 (off the top of my head) of the Anti Social Behaviour Order) claim but they will only act if all other routes have been exhausted, they will also charge a fee. After a High Hedges investigation the LA may rule that the offending hedge be reduced to an Action Hedge Height - the result of calculations made by the Tree Officer. The hedge may then be reduced to 600mm below the AHH to allow for re-growth. If the hedge owner does not comply, the LA has the power to have the work carried out and bill accordingly. A drawn out and costly process that is best avoided by reasonable discussion over a nice pint! I'd stay out of it personally.
  5. 1 and 2 - Pics of my old landy over the years... spent an absolute fortune on it - new everything! 3 - An awsome tree landy I saw at a landrover show a few years back. 4 - How they do it in Croatia! The future?
  6. Thought I'd add some of my findings so far... NZ Arb Association - http://nzarbor.org.nz/ Otago Poly Arb Courses - http://www.otagopolytechnic.ac.nz/index.php?id=175&PID=NAT%20AR4 Waikato Institute of Technology Arb Courses - http://www.wintec.ac.nz/index.asp?pageID=2145825425 As NZ Paul said, there is loads of links etc on the NZQA Website.
  7. You're a diamond mate... thanks!
  8. Thanks alot NZ Paul... all makes for interesting reading. Do you know the names of the training colleges and Uni's?
  9. Hi all, I'm sure most of us are reading this thread thinking... 'I wonder...' and 'what if...' etc so here are my few questions if anyone can help? What is the training like over there... formal / informal etc? Who are the main training providers and where are they based? What are the main practical and academic / professional qualifications that people look for? Is there much of a consultancy scene? Many thanks guys... Happy New Year by the way!
  10. My money's on Rigidoporus ulmarius... seen it on quite a few chestnuts recently. Have a look at http://www.aie.org.uk for more details.
  11. Excellent clip, what was going on with the sound effects though?! I think the saw was an MS200T?
  12. Check out the Sparsholt College Hampshire website as well... loads of courses on offer from short courses (for the NPTC qualifications) to Foundation Degrees. If you have the right attitude and a good work ethic then I'm sure you'll do well... you might be better in a different part of the country though as Hampshire, West Sussex, Wiltshire etc are all over subscribed with workers. Also, things are always going to be difficult during a recession in almost any industry... (except perhaps debt collecting?!) but long-term, its a great career path. Get an arboricultural qualification, develop an understanding of trees and have a long-term aim within the industry... lots of people stop climbing due to injury problems and then fall out of arboriculture as they haven't got a decent qualification behind them, I've seen a lot of talent wasted. Best of luck!
  13. I would imagine the blake's hitch ties onto the line just above the pully and relies on the stopper knot to keep it attached. I have seen guys tie a single fishermans onto the pully body at that point before but never fancied it myself, fancy it even less with a stopper!
  14. If I had a pound for everytime I'd done that...! Here's the link... http://www.johnlewis.com/230475869/Product.aspx John Lewis did the best price plus the £50 cashback.. not sure if thats still current?
  15. My wife bought one of these a while ago... frighteningly good for the price! It can even make my lame attempts loom semi-professional! Really easy to use but enough features to keep you busy for a while, we did upgrade to a bigger lens for distance work but the standard is ace
  16. Ahh... the old NHDC contract... used to do that in the mid 90's. Similar stuff for us too... junkies trying to sell us nicked tellys having just climbed out of the window! Needles everywhere, and weirdly... always the smell of cheap minced beef?! Worst occasion I ever saw was when a guy I was working with laid into a chap who was abusively complaining about sawdust in his fish-pond (even though we'd boarded it off completely!)... guess he caught my mate on a bad day! Wouldn't recommend that one though! You know what they say though... you can't educate pork!
  17. Was this picture taken in Belgium?
  18. Hmmm... never seen anything like it... my best guess would be some kind of freaky mutant Inonotus dryadeus fruiting body but that would be a total punt... look forward to finding out.
  19. Nice neat stacking Barnsley... good to see people taking pride in their stack!
  20. Ha! It's not going to kill you! Keep your eyes and ears open and treat it like a good days workout! Spend time thinking of all of the new things that you are learning on your tech cert, study (whilst walking!) each branch you are feeding into the chipper, think about your last lecture / book you read etc etc. Shigo didn't just jump straight in at the deep end you know! All the best with your career mate... its a great industry to be in!
  21. Not to worry... thanks for looking!
  22. Thats not to mention rigging and other general knots!
  23. Not sure which Colleges you're referring to but we will demonstrate as many knots to our students as we can, as long as they have mastered the basics... as a rule most 1 and 2 year arb students will have seen / used the prussik (open and closed systems), schwabish, distel, blakes hitch, VT, hitch climber and maybe even the lockjack now... obviously, we start with the basic 3 knot system so that if someone burns out, cuts or drops a prissik loop then they can still descend safely. All knots used must be tied many times correctly before they get off the ground.
  24. I feel mentoring is vital, and not just in the short-term... It's really important that people realise that NPTC qualifications are 'Certificates of Competence'... the first step on a very long career ladder... they are not proficiency qualifications, i.e. holders should be competent but not proficient. In my experience, most companies will have some kind of arrangement in place, no matter how informal. It has always been the case that experienced guys take the lead and less experienced guys learn from them. Even if mentoring is not via direct supervision on site, (in the later stages) it is really handy to be able to call a trusted colleague who will offer sensible advice without humiliating the youngster. I don't think that having a more structured system can hurt... just as long as the dreaded paperwork doesn't get too silly!

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