Highland Forestry

Mixed Hardwood available for Firewood. Species include Beech, Birch etc. Located in Morayshire, available in quantities minimum one lorry load. Please email [email protected] for a delivered price. Larch, Sitka Spruce and Scots Pine Logs also availbale, again minimum order one load. Many sizes available, please email for more info and quotation.

Ouch! Are you an NPTC assessor John?? if so, what are you ticketed up for?

That sounds a bit better..... is that £125 for the day for four people or £500 for the day for the lot? Either way, we were told we had to get NPTC chipper tickets so that we can use them on te rail infrastructure.

I think if you've got it you've got it sort of thing.... if you take to it naturally then you can amass alot of experience and knowledge in a reasonably short time period, like a year or two years but the basic ticket for me was just the stepping stone alowing me to get more experience and go to town on my felling cuts etc..... the courses that really opened my eyes were the CS32 medium trees and the windblow course... because I understood what I was being taught and had experienced it all previousley. Having said all of that, I have CS 30, 31, 32, 34, 35, 38, 39, PA1, PA6, ATV, First Aid, Chipper, PTS, LKT and will shortly have rabbit gassing, CS 40, CS 41 and NPTC Thorough Examination - none of it makes me any good, it's the experience that makes or brakes you. But I find I still never stop learning or challenging myself, and at the end of the day you can never have too much experience.. thats what I love so much about the work we do.... no two trees are the same and every day is slightly different.

I found that too.... spent about £200 on google adwords and never really worked out if it was any good or not... Quite hard to target management companies, land agents and commercial companies in the same way you target normal customers, for example, advert in the local paper would be a waste of time for me..

My wee brother is joining us as of next week now he has left school and will be going through his CS30 & 31 at the end of the month.... am explaining to him just now about how much he has to learn and what courses he will have to do before he can call himself a wood cutter! LOL, seems you give someone a basic ticket and all of a sudden they want to be on the next series of Axe Men!

yep, I know..... been there myself. Probably my fault also for letting them go to the job just on the say-so that they were ready for larger trees.

I have 9 guys, and if I dont do it properly then i'm buggered basically. If you take on a sub-contractor for 1 day a year, you need to have employers liability insurance (regardless of the contractors insurance) and you also need to have risk assessments in place.... I'm not saying I am whiter than white, because I know i'm not, and nobody here could honestly say they are, but at least I make an effort to take care of myself, my business and the guys I employ..... I will fill out the forms for the sake of it if it means we're legit.... what you have said sounds like you cant be arsed doing the paperwork.... you're not alone. Regarding standing in court and explaining how you assessed the risks - they will ask you to prove that you did a risk assessment and they will want to see a hard copy of it, not just you're word that you did it, honest your honour.

I'd just like to add for anybody reading my last post.... After his phone call I stopped the job before somebody got hurt or any more of my kit got FUBAR'ed!!!

Yep, totally agree with all of that Stevie... I had a good example of somehting similar last week. I was away, and ill and had a job come in so I sent two of the boys to a job to fell some big sitka for a 360 excavator putting a new road into a wood.... basic easy stuff.... I got a phone call at lunch time from one of the guys to say he had scared the crap out of himself, broken his saw, snapped my timber tape, snapped a high lift wedge and dropped one of the trees in the wrong direction.. This guy assured me he was ready for big sitka, and he is reasonably experienced felling smal stuff and is a good worker..... but, having done his courses he thought he was the man.... turns out he's still the boy!

For me it was two pointless wasted days which is obviousley two days money up the swaney... luckily we've been quite quiet so it wasnt like we were on a deadline for anything, but the two days is a joke... Honestly, you could do absolutley everything required and answer all the questions, the whole lot of it in under 2hrs... I've actually got pneumonia at the moment, so as you can imagine, doing the assessment with it I wasn't and haven't and still am not in the best of moods! Bear with a sore head and all that.. Where do I go to become an assessor/trainer..... looks an easy job to me.

LOL..... the guys all came out with a cracker for the changing of blades, adjusting belts etc - theyre not alowed to do it as all of the maintenance is carried out by the contracting company.... As soon as the blades are buggered or the thing breaks down we just call out thier fitter who makes it work again and we get back to work The assessor couldnt argue with it really.

You'd be better with google adwords surely??

It's a piss take when you're putting 4 blokes through it!

Rob - one of the main reasons I do a risk assessment for EVERY job, regardless of how big or small is to have a paper trail..... if the worse happens and my insurance are nit picking, I want to make sure they have no choice but to pay out and cant find anything wrong with the company or the H & S. Once you get into the habit of doing the RA's it just becomes part of the job.... I can even get my guys to go on-site and do thier risk assessment, it's just check boxes and they are paid to do what I ask them to do, if the risk assessment is part of that then theres no excuse for not doing it.

Yep! and I even managed to get the diesely stuff into the tanky thing... The worst of it was we all turned up at specified time and place, and there was nothig to chip! Nobody had any saws or PPE apart from me so I had to cut and prune a load of stuff for 6 guys to feed through the chipper.. Having some stuff to chip would be quite high on my list if I was providing a chipper course..

They have just changed it to a two day afair though which is the biggest load of bollox i've ever heard of...... its a total con and the most annoying thing is you don't learn anything!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! the course used to be half day training and 30min assessment in the afternoon. and now it;s a day training and then another day for an external assessment.

Having recently completed an NPTC chipper course in order to tick another box... has anyone else attended this course recently? What a joke...... one whole day for training and another day for assessment?? NPTC courses are becoming a bit of a con IMO..... I do respect the qualifications and need for them but the costs involved and the time are a joke. The whole of the chipper course training AND assessment I could have done in literally 2hrs. Just looking in to going for assessment for the CS40 & CS41 tickets at the moment also - £245 per person based on two people for assessment in one day for both qualifications...... how on earth do they justify nearly £500 for an assessor for one day and a certificate that takes months to arrive and a dodgy plastic photocard?!?

Nice Sugoi!! looked a nice job, good fun.

Here's some I found kicking about the laptop.. not just RA's but a few different red tape forms.. My generic RA is in hard copy so cant post that but like john, it;s about 25 odd pages long.. Would be interesting to see some examples of risk assessments for forestry rather than just arboriculture.. DRUGS AND ALCOHOL POLICY.doc Environmental Risk Assessment.doc HEALTH AND SAFETY POLICY STATEMENT.doc Knapsack Calibration Sheet.doc LONE WORKING PROCEDURE.doc method statement.doc RAchecklist.doc Record of Pesticide Application.doc

As far as site specific RA's are concerned for arboriculture, it might be a good idea to include a tick box for 'pre-usage' checks in accordinance with the LOLER regs.... could save some paperwork else where - your site specific risk assessments then also double up as your LOLER record of usage and checks. Does anybody have a copy of a local environment risk assessment (LERA) ?

...... obviousley too bloody low!!!! How can they make a mistake like that in this day and age?? the mind boggles.

ahh there is a silver lining then!!

11,000 people...... that's actually less that I expected it to be considering the old and frail etc. Spanish Flu eh?? Jesus H Holy Christ!!! 50M world wide is a serious bug... Bloody hope I dont get that!! Suffering with a lung infection at the moment which I am positive is pneumonia, although the doctor wont confirm that as he's ''not sure'', and man does it hurt..... coughing, shallow breathing, no sleep, bruised ribs/pulled muscles..... last thing I need is swine flu but it looks like eveyone is going to get a dose of it sooner or later..

Does anybody else watch the news in the mornings?? I never read newspapers, but always watch th news first thig in the morning but my god it's so depressing..... never any good news to brighten up the day, always doom and gloom.... if it's not war and poverty, murder and slaughter it's financial ruin, job losses, global depression....