Arboricultural Association
To advance the science of arboriculture for the public benefit

Up Front - March 06

Industry news and views, events, technical developments and people.
A Quarterly message from the Arboricultural Association by Nick Eden, posted March 2006
(This message is published in the Arboricultural Association's March Newsletter. For your regular copy, join us)

We've done it - we've broken the 2,000 barrier. At the end of 2005 we had 2,022 paid up members. We have seen growth in almost every other area of the Association's activities too: the number of Approved Contractors grew from 120 in the 2005 Directory to 127 this year (and already increasing with new companies being approved), Registered Consultants grew from 35 to 39 (plus two so far this year) and the number of training events we are running has doubled in the last few years, and so it goes on.

Your Views - Please

Although the graph goes up and to the right we do not want to be complacent and for this reason we are asking you what you like about the Association - and what you don't. It is now four years since we conducted a structured survey of members and you should find a questionnaire posted with this Newsletter - please take the time to complete it and let us know - we can only shape our activities and services to suit you if you let us know what we do well and where we could improve.


British Standard 5837: 2005 - Trees in Relation to Construction - Recommendations

The new BS 5837 is becoming more familiar both with consultants and tree officers - and we hope to attract non-arborists to the seminar series (running in Scotland, Ireland, SE England and SW England) as well as arbs. The Midlands event in January attracted 65 delegates - well done Midlands Branch. The Association has given the new BS and its drafting panel a fairly high profile both at the launch of the Standard at Conference and in the seminar series. Not surprisingly the drafting panel members hold the document in a positive light - there are others with different views and it is only right that we provide space for these views to be aired. Jeremy Barrell presents an article in the March issue - no comment from me here (except to say thank you Jeremy) - please get a copy and form your own opinion. The industry is promised a review 12 months on from last September's launch (there are even hints of an annual review); it is important that views are made known.

The Association has a formal structure in place for commenting on British Standards - through our representative who sits on BSI's Committee B/213. At this point I should say a belated, but never the less very genuine thank you to Dr Giles Biddle O.B.E., who has represented the Association for many years on B/213 and as many will know, hugely influenced the 1991 version of BS 5837. Dr Biddle tendered his resignation from B/213 in August last year.

Simon Pryce has been appointed to be successor to Dr Biddle and in so doing takes on the job of feeding into BS 5837's first-year review. Simon will be collating responses from the branch chairmen following the seminar series which will have been formulated from a fairly wide catchment of seminar delegates. Simon will also be looking at the work of the BS 3998 (Recommendations for Tree Work) drafting panel which is currently in the revision process.

Technician's Certificate

More thanks are due - this time to Jonathan Oakes for his role as Moderator and Lead Examiner for the AA Technician's Certificate qualification.

Jonathan has handed over this role to Education and Training Committee Chairman Rhoderic Taylor and leaves the qualification in good shape and attracting more candidates each year. Significantly Jonathan, with Rhod, has worked tirelessly to get the qualification through the hoops and hurdles required by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (thereby achieving national status), and has also been extremely supportive in assisting examiners with standard setting, producing reports, fairness and quality control - thank you Jonathan.

Trade Fair

This ever growing annual event is shaping up nicely and exhibitor bookings are coming in almost daily. A new site layout has been agreed with our landlords which makes use of the woodland edge for exhibitors wishing to make use of the trees - perhaps to demonstrate ropes and harnesses or simply to make tree people feel at home - amongst trees!

Also new for 2006 Stihl and Treevolution will be dismantling a tree using the latest equipment and techniques as well as running the popular Stihl Technical Workshop again - come with those technical questions that you really need answered and get free advice. The Contractors' Workshop will also offer visitors a number of other free technical demonstrations and presentations including

The Association is grateful to Stihl for sponsoring the Contractors' Workshop. You can find out more about the Stihl programme at the Trade Fair on the Trade Fair pages of the website

In this Newsletter - or in the next…

We have had to increase the size of the Newsletter to 40 pages (a few years ago it was 32, then 36 and now 40). Editor Paul Smith has managed to include some significant quality articles in this issue but more have had to be held over to the next issue because of an abundance of supply.

This issue:

  • BS 5837: 2005 by Jeremy Barrell - a consultant with much experience of trees and construction
  • The forthcoming Noise Regs
  • A focus on Sequoia
  • Some questions about how arboriculture features in the Institute of Chartered Foresters by ICF President James Ogilvie
  • Utility Arboriculture Group reports
  • Reports on the most recent Treework Environmental Practice/AA Seminars
  • What's happening in Scotland.

A flavour of what to expect in the next issue:
  • HSE targets Arboriculture - in April 2004 HSE's Health and Safety Awareness Officers (HSAOs) began a 3 year project involving contacting arboriculture contractors to offer help and guidance in complying with the many areas of health and safety legislation that apply to them. HSAOs will be covering Employers Liability Insurance, Risk Assessment, Work at Height Regulations, LOLER, training and current guidance. We will look at the HSE's target areas in more detail in the next issue
  • Revised standards for AA Approved Contractors - reassessment was introduced five years ago and there are no AAACs who have not been assessed or reassessed within the last five years. Quite an achievement! Over this period there have been new regulations, standards, work techniques etc. and the technical standards have been overhauled to match current requirements. This will be examined in the next issue.

In the last Newsletter we congratulated Dorset-based tree surgeons Banyards Ltd on winning the 'Contractor of the Year: Arboriculture' award at the 2005 Horticulture Week award ceremonies. We should also have congratulated Birmingham-based Acorn Tree Surgery Ltd - runner up to the award. It was extremely pleasing to see that both finalists were AA Approved Contractors. Well done Banyards, well done Acorn. Don't forget to check out the training schedule on the AA website - coming up soon: " BS 5837: 2005 Application and Implications - a roadshow event at a branch near you in March/April " TEP/AA Seminar Tree Morphology 23rd/24th March " Strategic Tree Management 4th April

Nick Eden
Director
Arboricultural Association