Highland Forestry

Dean, did you go to the saatchi gallery???

Have looked at this a couple of times on the bay... bit small for us unfortunatley, if it would take out 5t it would have been perfect

Auditions on ITV2 again just now.... hillarious

Transit/Iveco - All that jap stuff is designed for midgets..

This was a funny one... [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIx0h7_nF08]YouTube - Worst Audition ever[/ame]

talent, yes.... not sure about the rest, seemed a bit fake to me ?

ART??????..... to FIVE year olds???? ..... FO.

damned right!! wow. She looks naturally beautiful too which is rare

That cheril cole lass is absolutley beautiful......hubba hubba hubba

Watching the new X-Factor on ITV2+1 at the moment, absolutley hillarious, you have to love the auditions.... where do they find people this bad??!

Looking for a Skyline contractor for an upcoming job in Morayshire, Scotland. Please email [email protected] for more information or PM.

Testcricket - Just to let you know, Ash can be a bit snappy mate. Take on board what's being said here cause it sounds like it might help for the future. As for insurance being a grey area? Come off it... you know as well as anyone that you're supposed to have public liability. You also need employers liability if you had a lad in to help. If you're not sure about what insurance you need then you shouldn't be doing the job, further to that just call a broker and ask. Looking at the pictures yo posted up, looks like your cuts on the gob didnt meet properly either which will not have helped matters, and you're hinge isnt straight which will have biased the direction of pull.

Having said that... I have done something similar with an indian bean tree! My grandmother has a really nice specimen in her garden which blew over about 5 or 6 years ago, we uprighted it with a tractor and then drove fence posts into the ground around it and tethered it down and as far as I'm aware the tree is now stable and healthy without tethers. I'll have to ask her if she can send me some pictures of it to post up here

Whats the betting the next puff of wind they're over again??

If you are felling a lot of them and cutting, snedding up after felling then maybe a set of freestanding step ladders would be better, even the short 4ft tall ladders you get, but whoever wrote that on the spec should get shot.. lol, bloody hard work felling above head height with a saw, not to mention dangerous!

Only after they have passed their CS38/39!!

I would be quoting £100-110 a day per man. If you go in a bit higher the farmer will probably want to knock you down to what you're after anyway. Sounds a really nice job... bit different with the 6ft coppards. I wouldn't be felling large diameter stems above head height though, spikes and flip line job me thinks.

Yep ... me. But only because I like to give people a chance and normally I offer new guys a trial period to start with.

Likewise, I wasn't aiming anything at you either.. LMFAO - ''More anchor points than the QE2'' LOL i'll remember that one. One of the lads I had out of merrist wood took literally a whole day to do what I could have one myself in a couple of hours.... this is when I started to think about the quality of his training... for starters it took him 45 mins to get a throwline up and get his rope up.. If you come out of college telling me you're the dogs bollox then I want to see a ****-hot climber... it's not a case of it being my problem if he's no good... afterall..he's told me he's an ''arborist'' not a ''tree surgeon!'' and all the shpeel that goes with it. The best guys and the best climbers I have seen so far have all learned through experience of actually doing the job. Some of them have more professional qualifications that were obtained as CPD and some of them are like me and just have their NPTC units.

That is a very valid point, it's the same for us as well.... but the guys we contracting to are just playing the liability game and thats why they require the tickets. They are covering their arse the same as I have to cover mine..

My insurers wanted to know what tickets I had as well as how many guys working for me and what tickets they have, they also wanted to know if we had a H & S policy, drugs and alcohol policy, employment policy, induction training, they wanted to know if I complyed with LOLER and I will have to proove it all if I ever have a claim..

CTS - you are to be commended then mate and yeah sounds like I probably had three bad climbers, but as already mentioned in this thread, the 10wk course was originally designed for people with experience to gain more skills and so you fitted the bill perfectly. I would never expect somebody to come straight out of college and be able to work as competently as somebody with 2 or 3 years experience but the point I was trying to make is that from the guys I had, they were of the mindset that it is ok to go on a go-slow and take ages over a job because they were ''being safe'' .... learning and improving is one thing but taking the piss out of the guy paying your wages because you are ''being safe'' is another..... is stopping for a cup of tea every half an hour because ''I'm being safe'' ok? I think anybody could come up with a list of faults with anybody, and I am no exception to this.... stevie often points out my faults! BUT... I dont call myself an arborist and I never will do. I agree with you on the whole bravado issue and it annoys me that guys come straight out of college saying they can do this and do that and did this and did that and are a professional arborist when in reality they are somebody with the very very minimum tickets and normally minimum experience and they are pretending to be a professional.... So, as an employer when somebody comes to you saying all this, you want to see them perform as they say they can do. I have to admit, the next guy I take on will have to have an interview and send in a propper CV because I've had some really bad experiences with numpties over the last year and that has probably clouded my vision somewhat. Sorry x

So you are telling me that my insurance company will cover me comprehensivley if I dont have a loler inspection, dont have a ticket for climbing, dont have a record of usage, dont have a health and safety policy etc? If that is the case why have any of us bothered to do any training whatsoever?

You can't buy EL without buying PL

As I see it, and I may be wrong.... but.... It is illegal to work without adequate insurance, be it public liability or employers? correct? If you employ someone, even if they are self employed you legally have to have employers liability and when purchasing employers you must also have public so the two are hand in hand... Righto, so to be insured, you have to be qualified for what you are doing or the insurance company will void your policy... E.G.. somebody climbing a tree and cutting without CS 38, 39 etc, has an accident and a claim ensues...... insurance company say ''we're very sorry but we can not honour your policy as your employee was not qualified for the task he was performing'' So, in a round about way, having the necessary qualifications is the law.. If you dont have them then you dont have insurance and that is illegal. There are many cans of worms here, another example would be LOLER... if I have a guy in climbing and his rope snaps the insurance company would want to see the last LOLER inspection and the record of usage... if you dont have it then they will duck out of the claim and leave you shafted Felled a tree through a powerline? ... Where was his UA.1/UA.2?? Contaminated a river with propyzamide? ... Where was his PA1/PA6?? Had a nasty accident with a chipper? ... Where was his brushwood chipper ticket? The scenarios are endless but getting back to the point, if you havent got the relevent competency, be it NPTC or LANTRA etc then you're not really insured and that is against the law.