10 Bears

You are right, in that if they are not spelt out before the 'contract' is entered in to with no counter offer, then they cannot stand. In simple terms, a solicitation for service is made and a bargain is struck. The provider has to offer terms, including description of service and payment terms ie what do you get, for how much and how to pay. If agreement is made, including just verbally, then the contract stands as is with no counter offer. If however, the client doesn't agree, then they make a counter offer and the bargain will be struck on their terms, unless you make a counter offer back again and so on. Its a bit of tit for tat really when striking contracts, so you must be clear when stating terms. Note of advice, if a counter offer is made by the client that doesnt include an earlier point you wanted in, then it is their contract that is the last/most current and all other earlier contracts are void.

most chainsaw mechanics I've ever met were general agriculture mechanic qualified. From my local college, that's a two year course mind.

Hodge, Sorry 'I cant help tomorrow - I've got builders in at home and really need to be here as I don't trust builders as far as I can chuck a 3m log to be honest, but if you get stuck again give me a shout. I think you should have my details from the email I sent you a while back, but if not PM me and Ill give you all my details again so you can have them on record for the future. All the best.

A bit of a non-news story just for the punchy headline. It reads like it was written in the last 5 minutes on a Friday before a long weekend off.

I don't see how you are starting if you have been self-employed for a year. You may be thinking of expanding or getting your own work, but to be honest that is little different then what you are doing now. You will just be responsible for arranging more of it! In my opinion - just go for it. If working the saw is your calling, then you are better off pursuing that as a work/lifestyle then being a subbie where you have reduced control over your chosen work. Put yourself out there, get signage on your truck, a good website and business card and don't be afraid to approach and talk to people about how you can help them. A big part of being a 'small business' is the sales pitch. Get that right and you are laughing, but as you are your own boss, ultimately its down to you.

I thought I had read that the UK has more signs then anywhere in Europe - a quick search found this: Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin to axe pointless traffic signs | Mail Online

I have two types of rates - one lot for commercial (higher - due to longer processing times) and one for domestic. I state on the quote/estimate/invoice that commercial terms are 21 days net, and domestic is 7 days net. In all my time trading I have never had a customer go beyond those terms (fortunately!), and following this thread, I wonder why this is? Am I right in guessing that the majority of you have been billing for manual works? All my work is consultancy now, so I am beginning to draw the assumption that there is a bit of employment prejudice here ie the guy on the tools can be put off a while from being paid, but the chap writing the reports needs to be paid on time? Just a theory...

You should get the tree TPO'ed for cultural and heritage reasons.

Well, its a good entry level book and doesn't cover too much in great scientific detail. What kind of level are you looking for? Is this for an academic course or for personal information?

For myself I've always used Jungle Formula - which works a lot better than the Avon and citronella products IMO. I know you can get it in a reasonably large spray can, but not sure if the economics would balance if you had to spray a whole horse in it!

"And on the sixth day, God created Manchester" Gods own City, and there can be no doubt. As for the tree, yes, you took too much off the top and that was the start of the problem as in simple terms, the tree still has a root system that was developed for the size of the tree that it was before you topped it. The result is that it will now have a series of hormonal triggers to redress the imbalance and this process of mending itself can cause a variety of other stresses to come into play as the healing process will take a lot of energy. In short, you shouldn't have topped it - but that is done now so you will have to live with it. The comments about a good, treated, organic mulch around the base of the tree to the drip-line and an irrigation regime are spot on, as I think the tree looks drought stressed too. Even the comment on it being one sided as a response to wind affect is also entirely plausible. Do you know the predominant wind direction in your area or is there a possible funnelling of wind between buildings perhaps? As for the cracking, these simply look like growth cracks to me which are common in the species. As you know, trees grow in annual rings (mostly) and for the newly formed wood underneath to be able to overlay the previous years growth, something has to give which causes the cracks in the bark. You can see it much easier in some species then others, and I think that is what you are seeing here. Other then the suggestions made in the comments above, I think you will be doing all you can. Perhaps a final note on the watering though, the watering shouldn't be absolutely hammered at the base of the tree, as the main area that trees suck up water from is more towards the root tips where the fine root hairs are, so a distributed watering perhaps from a wide area garden sprinkler may be better - but still mulch and keep the mulch moist through the summer. Best of luck with it in any case.

I think you should also consider the extent of liability for the client that will remain. I would be more happy investigating the extent of strength loss/cavity and making a more informed decision on that basis. I've never been keen on just looking at the cavity and *guessing* how bad it may or may not be, at least with some level of measurement and calculation, you have a defensible and transparent decision process. Also, much like with financial investments, different clients have different acceptance levels of risk and if this client is particularly risk adverse combined with the findings of a strength assessment (lets assume its worse case scenario), then reduction to the union and retention as a monolith may be the answer, but a key part is conducting a further assessment in my opinion. Anything else is just a guess surely?

Thanks for the update - useful to know. I dont do that kind of work any more which is probably why I missed this!

Spot on Rover - that was my point exactly. Eugene asked a lazy question, so got a lazy answer...

I guess they will be having a laugh if someone hits the BIN button by mistake - all the way to the bank!

Assuming you are right on the fungi ID, and following the clients options, I would simply remove. If it is KD there is little you can do to prevent catastrophic failure at some point in the future.

just coming in at a tangent here - but you should also be gangmaster licensed for planting jobs as it falls under the same remit. I have had to ensure it was in place for other FC planting jobs...

I get the sentiment here, but it seems that the value of qualifications are being mis-understood. If you want to run a saw your whole working life - get L2/L3 etc. and a lot of working knowledge and you will do well. If you want to be in supervisory or run teams, get experience on the saw and up to about L5 and you will have practical skills and knowledge to run the teams. If you want anything more ie management, planning or higher, then you go for L6 or more. Too many people roll out the old argument that because someone is fresh out of college then they dont know anything. The real problem is, they pursue a L6 and dont do well at it, and end up in a supervisory job because of their qualification when they really only want to be buzzing a saw on the grafting team. When this happens, they end up with not enough knowledge and too little experience to be useful to anyone. I've seen this happen many times. The real issue is, too many folk are told to exceed their expectations without really understanding what they are getting into. The educational system is set to intentionally push you to the next level, which may be beyond your individual limits, but if you pass the previous level you are entitled to keep going without anyone being able to say otherwise. It seems in the UK we are not able to tell people when they have reached their limit and so you get the situation where the college leavers dont know anything - because they have gone beyond their real individual limit! I believe in education, but I also believe in telling people when to call it a day.

Or you could try something powerful and free like QGIS. Lots of online based support and training to get you started. I'll be honest and say that you wont get better from a freeware in terms of analysis and functionality, but it just depends on how savvy you are and how far you want to take it. Just be aware though BS5837 is not applicable or even useful in all situations. PM me if you want more information.

Google. About 11,100,000 results (0.50 seconds)

Just out of interest ELG - have you heard much about the TTIP on your side of the pond?

You can all stop now, I've posted the winning name. Liros ...... now that would be telling!

Methinks we predicted this... You will never guess what the European Commission is saying happened regarding the TTIP consultation! Read on... Frustratingly, you’re going to need to resubmit your response to the EU’s consultation on TTIP. Last week, so many of us submitted to the consultation that their website crashed! 25,000 submissions were saved by the 38 Degrees office team while the EU's site was down. Using lawyers to show how serious we are, we asked the TTIP team to accept these responses in bulk. But they’ve refused. They haven’t given a reason - it just seems like a case of ‘computer says no.’ We only have a few days to resubmit. Don’t worry, you don’t need to rewrite your response. Once you click the link below, you’ll be taken to the consultation page, and it’ll be filled in with what you wrote last Thursday. Please click the link to resubmit your response to the consultation on TTIP. You’ll need to do a quick security check before the EU will accept it: https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/EU-TTIP-Consultation When the site crashed last week, the office team assumed that the TTIP team would take a common-sense approach to accepting the saved responses. Unfortunately this isn’t the case, and we’re really sorry. We’ve tried to make it as easy as possible for you to resubmit to the consultation. When you click the link, as well as your previous response, you’ll also see a sentence that says that you’re resubmitting. Lawyers have advised the office team to add this so that we can see how many people’s responses needed to get resubmitted. Please click here to resubmit to the EU consultation on TTIP: https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/EU-TTIP-Consultation So those of you that did lodge your concerns, please return to the site from the same computer and resubmit your comments. Ive just done this in less than 30 seconds. Of course, this also gives everyone else the opportunity to submit their views as well if they missed it the first time...

I presume you have all read the Bond paper? (Useful for the chap writing the essay) http://www.urbanforestanalytics.com/sites/default/files/pdf/bond_tR.pdf I agree with the comment above. The much cited t/R has been widely discredited on a number of points, but to summarise the key ones that affect the validity of the 'experimental' approach when Ozzy Osbourne/Matheck cam up with t/R questionable: The trees were all damaged in a single storm event They are not individual trees, but trees growing in a forest stand There are several trees below the 0.3 threshold - that did not fail in the storm event t/R is over-hyped and misquoted and is not an absolute threshold. At best you could say rule of thumb which is what one or two of you have also suggested to be fair. Also, Im interested - who was the picky tutor?

I thought the same in regards to the "bloody mad" comment, but to be fair, its all been in black and white since 1973... http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1973/57/enacted Note section 7 point 2. Its been this way for years...