Tree Surgeon Case Studies

Friday 9th August saw the Tom Boswell Tree Services summer day out. It was a mixture of team building, competitions and a few well earned drinks too...... The day started at The Breakfast Club in Camden Passage, Angel with a hearty breakfast followed by a walk to The Jenius Social Club 20 mins north. There we were split into 4 teams and given the chance to battle it out to see which team could produce the best 2 course dinner. Marks were on presentation, taste, work space tidiness and general team work with the winners receiving the coveted trophy prize and the respect and admiration of all involved! All the teams did really well (as you can see from the plates!) It was a great experience with team work and collaboration being the main winners. Big thanks to Rob our operations director for organising a fantastic day out.

Our onsite teams recently undertook some additional training from Arbskills trainer Ben Minty Rose. Ben joined us at North Acton playing fields close to our yard and organised a fantastic workshop of rescue scenarios and best modern practice. Ben's company Arbskills (https://www.instagram.com/arbskills/) supplies bespoke training to tree surgery company's looking to ensure their staff are fully compliant with health and safety regulations and also ensuring they are working with the most up to date methods and knowledge. The day started at our yard with coffee, pastries and an overview of what we would be doing. After this the teams headed to North Acton playing fields. The tree team at Ealing Council had kindly allowed us to use some of the parks bigger trees - with the usual safety measures for working around the public - thank you to Ealing tree officers, this meant we had some impressive Oak trees to swing around in! The workshop included a refresh of the most commonly used kit - ropes, harnesses, knot tying, personal protective kit etc. Followed by some bespoke training for our various employees. The company has a mixture of lead tree climbers, climbers in training plus grounspersons who are aerial rescue qualified and able should the need arise. Ben was able to split the teams up to ensure everyone received training relevant to their role. To test the guys a series of rescues were set up to ensure all team members were up to date and proficient in rescuing their colleagues. Towards the end of the day the Ben covered some of the more advanced climbing systems we are starting to use such as single rope technique or SRT which is increasing being utilised in our industry to improve efficiency. A big thanks to Ben for his fantastic teaching as well as a big thank you to all the guys who made the day a success. The team received a very smart aerial rescue update workshop certificate.

Yesterday our team took on this beast in the heart of London. Nothing major, just a light reduction focusing mainly on some limbs overhanging the neighbouring buildings and some overextended sections of the crown. On a sunny day, theres nothing better.

Today we had quite an interesting Robinia to prune. We had originally applied to the council to have this tree removed due to the excessive dieback throughout the crown but our application was denied. Sometimes the local authorities would prefer we removed the dead, dying and dangerous branches along with some light pruning to see how the tree responds over the coming years. Hat's off to the team who worked on this one which was by no means an easy day.