CATrain access Landskills East Funding

We are pleased to be able to announce that through our partners in ART we are now able to fund eligible courses and training projects through the Landskills East project up to a 65 %. We will be holding a series of briefing sessions through the autumn - if you wish to attend or would like an informal chat about eligibility criteria please contact us here: landskills@catrain.co.uk . More on this exciting development later.

Landskills East is supported under the Rural Develeopment Programme for England by EEDA, Defra,and the EU co-ordinated by Lantra, managed by the Rural Enterprise Hub at Easton College in partnership with Norfolk County Council

A busy week doing what?

This week should have been quiet but even with many people on holiday it has turned out to be a little bit busier than usual.

Monday, Visits to two of our regular and long serving customers to establish training needs for the next 6 months. This is always useful because it helps us plan and book the right instructor and facilities in time. Cambridge Wildlife Trust who were one of the visits was extremely beneficial as we have only ever communicated by e-mail or telephone ansafone before! It really is useful being able to names and faces together. More on how we work with CWT for another blog.

Tuesday, Another customer – Crown Nurseries and the fruition of some training earlier in the year. Crown Nursery benefited from three of their staff receiving IT training through the Women in Work scheme we promoted last year. This resulted in a review of the way they use computers in the office and led to us installing a Windows Homeserver network to provide efficient cost effective back up and document sharing. We achieved this as a software only solution using existing hardware. Through our IT experience we were able to help our customer right through from initial training to developing a new way of IT management in the office.

Wednesday, was finishing off and checking the backups at Crown went as planned. The afternoon ended up on the telephone discussing new courses.

Thursday, Mmmh, well it happens to us all – Paperwork day. I often wonder what will happen when we arrive at the paperless office.

Friday is planning day. After a week of enquiries we need to sit down with the calendar and look at New and existing courses. Over the coming weeks we will be highlighting some of the changed to existing courses and the new courses and legal requirements, one of the first of these will be the new DRIVERS CPC for professional LGV and PCV drivers - From the 10th September 2008 a new legislative directive comes into force with the aim to improve the skills and knowledge of all PCV and LGV drivers throughout their working lives. We will dedicate a complete post to this in the next few weeks.

Help for Heros and Why

You may notice that for nearly a year we have carried a link to Help for Heroes on the right hand side of our blog. Nothing to do with our business or training but this news report highlights why we we feel we should do "something" If you read the article, from the BBC, and then may be think about Help for Heroes

Training - The view from Federation of Small Businesses

Traka Forklift Security - the way forward?

We often talk about "key out " policies with machinery - here is one way that technology is helping solve the problem in a practical way.

Communications

One of the most important items for any business is the ability to communicate and be known to be in communication and able to respond to customers. In an odd sort of way this was emphasized to me again on Monday.

A bit of history - back in the early 1990's when I worked for CPB at Thriplow we had, wait for it - two "mobile phones" I use the term mobile in its' loosest sense. When one of these had a problem I looked in Yellow pages and found a small local business called CBS Communications in Beche Road, Cambridge. Arriving at CBS comms. I was amazed that the guy didn't write off our equipment and try and sell us a newer model but no, he cannibalised another 'phone and sorted us out there and then. Since that day and through three different companies I have continued to use CBS communications for my mobile phone(s) and this week that loyalty was again restored.

Recently, having expanded our 'phone and data package things weren't quite right so Linda at CBS told us to send our Vodafone bill in and someone would sort it. We did this last Friday, catching the last post. Five o'clock on Monday evening an email from Marcus who "is" CBS Communications Ltd. By Tuesday at 09:00 all the issues we had were sorted. This reminded me why nearly twenty years ago I had decided this was a company to rely on.

So as with a lot of our philosophy of buy from and support local business, our judgement has brought its' own rewards.

So a free plug for CBS HERE

Health and Safety - Good News

Maybe the investment all our customers have made in Skills training and Health and Safety based subjects is starting to pay off!

From the HSE website:

In agriculture there were 26 fatal injuries in 2008/09 with a corresponding rate of 5.7 deaths per 100 000 workers. This compares to a rate of 9.9 when an average of the previous five years is examined.

For the last 10 years at least the figure has stayed around the 50 deaths a year mark so this really is something of a break through.

Wasps!

With the summer fast approaching a quick reminder of one of our new courses this year. We are extremely lucky to have Graham providing us with a full day on Wasp Control. The full programme for the day can be found if you click HERE along with the ability to register your interest in this course which is scheduled for early June.

26th February 1987

I was reading through the minutes of our predecessor "Cambridge Agricultural Training Group" from 26/02/87 tonight.

Past and Present, Three of our valued customers were on the committee then and remain loyal customers in 2009, :EW Pepper, Trumpington Farm Co. and P & O Harrold.

The business ran 55 days of training over the preceding year (1986), we now run over 200 days per year!

The turn over of the business was £8,000 - it is now ten times that amount but how we manage to achieve that figure without the funding from the govt through ATB is something of a challenge. A big thank you to those who continue to renew your membership each year.

The subject of funding for skills training was discussed, (some things never change)

I hope to produce some more of our history on line as an archive and acknowledgment of our story. Look to our website for more facts and figures from the past.

Towing the Line

We often get asked about training and preparation for tests involving towing. The Highways Agency has produced a video to explain and illustrate some of the issues involved. If you want to discuss preparation for the B+E test or feel you just want a refresher on towing and reversing, be it a horsebox, caravan or 10 tonne grain trailer please feel free to contact us, as these are training sessions we quite regularly hold.

Click HERE for that video

Expansion

It seems odd to write about expansion at this time but that is what has happened. Our business has always been split into the practical hands on bit of instructing for our own group and other providers. We then have the important bit for our customers of organising and setting up training courses and programmes.

The trouble is this all takes time - so we have invested in office systems and staff. What does this mean for you? Well the paperwork generated from every course (what ever happened to the paperless office?) is now sorted as soon as we start on a course, certificates are processed in the same manner. Just a quick warning - we will be doing the same with invoices as well!

This miracle of organisation is Sue - you may well speak to her on the phone if you dial the office.

At the same time we are looking at ways to use our website, e-mail and the post office more effectively to help with communications about courses and related "stuff". You may already have received our e- newsletter, although some versions mysteriously translated into Latin on their way through the internet.

We have some important news about funding to announce during March - use the subscribe link at the bottom of this page to be notified as soon as we are in a position to release details.

BASIS points and Agronomy update.

KWS are hosting the following event at Thriplow on 26th March. Please contact us for details of cost and further information. (12 Basis points)

• Practical impacts of the European Parliament decision on
pesticide authorisation.

• Implications of the High Court decision in favour of Georgina
Downs V's DEFRA regarding the protection of neighbouring land users from
pesticide drift, and the subsequent decision by DEFRA to appeal the
against the ruling.

• New NVZ rules and forthcoming Revised RB209 - the implications
for fertiliser use.

• Agronomy and crop protection challenges of the 2008/9 season so
far.

• Spring crop protection decisions in combinable crops.

Time will also be allowed to cover other issues that arise from
individuals.

Do You Need a Database?

When I started with CATraining 3 years ago a new "Training Database" had just been purchased. It was supposed to be the answer to all our problems.

Three years later and we are emerging from the nightmare of our database. As some of you may have discovered certificates for courses have arrived late and notifications have been inconsistent.

I apologise but the reason is quite simple. We were trying to let the system run us rather than vice versa. While I have been grappling with the database from hell, Su has diligently been sorting out the paperwork in the time honoured way.

We now have a solution, the customer and paperwork drives the computer, not vice versa! Make no mistake we need the computer to do the number crunching and remind us when we need to let you know about certificate expiry or where that missing certificate is but all this comes from the efficient filing of course paperwork.

So looking to the future we now have a system that works on all levels and for your benefit. We also now understand databases and Microsoft Access back to front so if you think you need to understand databases or that your Excel speadsheet doesn't do quite what you want it to do call us we might just be able to help.