Firstly, thank you for your patience during this very strange and difficult time. This is a message to let you know our plans as of today, 26th May 2020.
As you will be aware, all of our scheduled training was put on hold until the end of May, when we went into lockdown on March 23rd, with a view to reviewing the situation then.
We are currently following Government, HSE and Awarding Organisation advice, and cautiously planning for re-starting training and assessments in the coming months.
There are many factors to take into consideration, and a lot of careful thought is needed to do this responsibly. We need to be sure that once we resume delivery, we can not only maintain highest standards of training and assessments for you, our customers, but that we can also deliver sufficient volume to maintain our business and keep our admin staff employed, and most importantly -keep everybody safe!
Here is our provisional plan:
(dependant on being able to adequately comply with all of the necessary measures on social distancing and hygiene)
June onwards: – in line with HSE guidelines, we will prioritise assessments and refreshers for key workers and those working in high risk work activities such as Agriculture, forestry and related industries where recognised standards of formal training and/or certificates of competence are required. (includes chainsaw and machinery operators). As these activities by their nature require face to face contact with an assessor, consideration must be given to government guidelines relating to non-essential travel and home-working. This will generally be for experienced operatives and not for novices, although we appreciate there may be exceptions, and enquiries will be evaluated on a case by case basis. We aim to ensure that workers can source assessments and refreshers required to work safely. Assessments can include: Chainsaw and related operations, Forest Machinery operations, Agricultural and Construction machinery operations, and Transport of Animals.
Mid July onwards: – providing government advice allows, and restrictions continue to ease, we will re-instate most lower risk (outdoors/ low numbers) courses, beginning with those which were scheduled for April and May. This will include novice courses such as 5 day chainsaw. Indoor courses will be reintroduced, as and when we find solutions to run these safely.
We will prioritise customers who were already scheduled, booked and paid, then our second priority is for new bookings where candidates have booked and paid for a date tbc -on the understanding that first offered date may not be convenient.
To these customers -we will contact you with offers of dates as soon as possible.
New Enquiries: – If you would like to secure the earliest available place, let us know and we will send you a booking form, and will then offer you a place as soon as possible. (no obligation to accept dates offered)
Alternatively, we can send you an offer when available in the usual way.
Course Equipment: – we do hire out equipment for chainsaw and climbing courses, but as you will understand because of Covid-19, this now presents us with a problem as regards cross contamination. Therefore, we strongly suggest that customers bring their own course ppe and equipment which must then only be used by them during training and assessments. We will have to prioritise customers with their own equipment in the early stages, but if you need to undertake training and cannot provide your own, let us know and we will see what we can do.
Covid-19 ppe requirements: – customers will be required to bring their own ppe as specified for each individual course (such as face coverings for day 1 of chainsaw in the workshop), and their own hand sanitiser for personal use during outdoor sessions. We will always endeavour to have spare face masks and hand sanitiser available for indoor sessions.
Once again, thank you very much for your patience and understanding and we look forward to seeing you soon. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you have any questions. Email is best at the moment as phones are not always monitored.
Best Wishes
Karen and Allen Howell.
Directors Lynher Training Limited.