Cornwall Branch recently held a day of training aimed specifically at the Contractors in our area to bring them up to date information to allow them to be at the forefront of the Industry.
The day was opened by Alan Rowe, Branch Chair, who spoke about the Buy with Confidence Scheme that is backed by Trading Standards which is an avenue for Contractors to set themselves apart from the rogue traders.
Olly Bennett, Branch Secretary, next spoke about the latest P&D threats that we face and talked about bio-security as Contractors are at the ‘coal face’ and are very likely to be the ones who discover new outbreaks through their daily work.
After coffee Hi-Line’s Kirsty and Matt gave a hands on demonstration of some basic first aid and outlined what Contractors should be aware of and the level of training that they should aspire to. The 20 minutes of continuous CPR really brought home to people the real scenarios that we are likely to face, and hopefully this short talk will lead to a full first aid course sometime in the near future.
Mike Ellison took over after lunch and used the afternoon to give a classroom-based talk about risk assessment and then took us around the site to look at tree structure with some fascinating discussion about reaction wood and trees adapting to biological and climatic stimuli. The group were heavily engaged, and everyone got involved in the chat and it was only the failing light and Mike’s need to drive several hundred miles home that stopped us looking at more trees.
I have to give a very heartfelt thanks to all of the Speakers and to Paul Smith from AAHQ who came along as they all did it for free and Mike especially took several days out of his schedule to come down to Cornwall.
Finally, thanks to Gary Long at Trewithen Gardens, Probus who let us have the venue for the day which was a perfect setting for our talks.