Jack Gooding

£185 all-in for 3x exam papers, invigilation and registration at Easton College. The differences should be the invigilation costs between colleges as we're officially external candidates.

Just rang Easton College, you have to register to do the old-style RFS cert by the end of the year or ABC won't let you do the exams, and pay up for your registration/exams/invigilation costs up front. Don't know about re-sits (although hoping I won't have to take any!), and then you need to let them know which exams you wish to sit about 6 weeks before the actual exam date. Bloody good job this thread came up, or I'd have missed the deadline too!

Yes, apparently we can still sit the exams in their current format until the end of the certification date, which I think is Dec 2012..

Also note that each assessment centre requires x weeks notice of your intention to sit the exam on the dates in June/December. For example, Easton College (Norwich) wants 6 weeks notice.

Got mine fm the ISA for £40, although they did say that their stock shifted very quickly.

Just got the first three lessons in the post from HCC...reminds me of why I was never any good at biology at school! Looks massively in-depth, far more so than I imagined. i can see this taking a while...!

I'd give ABC a call, see if you can make more sense out of what the woman was saying than I did! The other thing I found out from calling different colleges was that most of them only let you start the course each academic year, not like HCC, who let you start whenever.

The syllabus has recently changed and is now accredited from 01/09/10, but having just contacted ABC Awards (who assess the RFS L2 cert in arb), they say the distance learning option for this course is/has been completely removed! The lady I spoke to insisted that HCC and Myerscough wouldn't be able to run the course online/via post as it all has to be assessed at a college. Now, I get that you need to go to a college to take the exams, but I though you could just pay to sit these and have someone from the college invigilate you, say at Easton College. HCC themselves say they'll be revising their lesson plans in a couple of months after they've finished doing some others, so it seems they think they can keep doing distance learning. What a bloomin' headache!

Have to agree, outstanding place, some wonderful oaks standing and on the ground. Over 4000 trees, you'd need a lifetime to climb them all! Only went on the first day, and found it highly boring until we got out into the parkland. They should have just let us loose from the moment we arrived!

Had one wrist done last mid-October, was working in December, albeit not on the saws, mainly chipping and driving. Come January all was fine, just took a bit of strength-building over time. Had the other wrist done last week, seems better than the first one post-op, hoping to be back in another 4-5 weeks! That's both done by the time I'm 29, which is apparently pretty darn rare! I'd say get it done, haven't had any problems with the first since the surgery. Pain in the arse having to have time off, but has sorted the problems for everyone I know who's had the surgery.

Had the operation last October, started work after 5 weeks but this was perhaps a little premature, probably needed another week or two. I've got most of my strength back, and I'm mighty glad I had the operation, but I still get pulsing muscle pain now and then after a harder day's work. I think it'll take a few months to clear up properly, to be honest, but it shouldn't stop you from doing most tasks. The time when you really can't work is the worst, because you end up sitting around thinking about what you *could* be doing! Basically, the worst part about the whole thing is the injection in the wrist (well, two of them)...there's no flesh in that area so it's all into nice and painful bits! Also, I personally found the exercises were a waste of time and was advised by my GP to stop doing them for a few weeks, as by stretching the palm out I was continuously re-opening the scar wound slightly, which delayed the healing process.

They do Andy, it was more the planting course and assessment I was thinking about, but apparently one of my instructors does a bit of that too so I'll ask around! Has anyone who took the distance learning course with HCC done it just with the course material, and not with the extra tuition? Just called HCC and it's £320 with four questions per lesson and feedback on your answers, or £160 for just the material. Figured I could probably ask for help on arbtalk

With regards to the AO* courses, eg planting, brushwood (chipper), what are these listed as on training web sites? I can't find an assessment schedule for these, and nowhere that seems to do the planting courses!

Last load of pigeons I took to the game dealer, they didn't even cover the cost of the cartridges. Venison, pigeons, pheasants, nothing is worth anything these days! Game dealers will bend you over as soon as you walk in the door!

I personally prefer our homemade sloe vodka, but that's because gin tastes like bloody perfume. We never freeze the sloes, or do anything to them after picking them and before putting them into the bottle. Take 1 mug of sloes, 1 mug of sugar, and put them into a vodka/gin bottle. Top it up with your preferred tipple, then after a while (which could be a month, could be a year - up to you how much sloe taste you want), decant it out through some muzzlin. The extra sugar makes it quite syrupy, but much better than the fizzy stuff you'll buy in the shops, like Gordon's. Mix it with some champagne for a "Slowgasm", guaranteed to make you feel a little light-headed.