Another seminar bites the dust…. May 31, 2017

Another year passes and another seminar has been and gone ….and what have we learnt???

Well this year the main thing we have learnt … is that its bloody difficult to get people to come to a seminar.

We have advertised the day in plenty of time, we had some fantastic speakers, we had a great venue, we had car parking, we had food …. we had everything sorted – and on top of all the basic good stuff there were also ‘freebies’ and entertainment – BUT – we just couldn’t get people to sign on the dotted line?

Why was this?

Was it because we were charging for tickets? …are people really so hard up that 85 quid was going to put a hole in their company finances??

Was it because we had some controversial speakers? …maybe Mark Avery can be a little forthright in his opinions but surely not so much as to put people off??

Was it because it was Japanese Knotweed Solutions Ltd that were running the conference? …. have people been ‘over knotweeded…’ ???? It wasn’t a conference about ‘knotweed’ as such – it was a conference about invasive species and environmental issues.

Or …is it a sign that we are all becoming too ‘virtual’ in our approach to life? Are we happier with our i-pads and our smart phones but NOT quite so happy meeting people face to face – one on one?? Is this a sign that we will simply become holographs in the future and never attend anything that requires us to move from our nice insulated offices???

Are we all just way tooooo busy to actually leave the office and attend a function? Are we concerned that if WE leave the office WE will be perceived as ‘slacking’ in some way??

I think continued professional education is vital within a company. It is key for the office team to feel challenged and motivated – vital to make them think, vital to make them see other points of view. This can only be done by getting out of the office and out of your comfort zone. Listen to people with different opinions to yours, you don’t have to agree with them…but just listen and think about why they have arrived at their conclusions – it’s a stimulating experience.

Personally, I love these seminars – I love the preparation and the imagination that is required to make the day a bit ‘different’ and a more ‘memorable’ …but to be honest by the time we had got to the day of the ‘do’ it had been far too draining getting people to join us for the day – and my clearly voiced opinion was…. ‘I’m never doing this again….’

But then dear reader – you get to the actual day of the seminar – the room is full – the speakers are blasting out music, the videos are playing…the jungle plants at the entrance to the hall look amazing….and the day kicks off.

It’s a fantastic buzz to see people enjoying the show.

The presentations were well received the audience loved the day.

Nobody left early…and the feedback has been amazing…

So ….the big question….will we be doing this again next year??

OF COURSE WE WILL.

 Mike C

The INNSA Code of Practice for Japanese Knotweed May 31, 2017

The Environment Agency Code of Practice – Managing Japanese Knotweed on Development Sites has been the go-to document for over fifteen years for contractors and developers looking to manage Japanese knotweed.

Written by Trevor Renals, the original document was released in 2001 into a development landscape where Japanese knotweed was very much an unknown quantity. Some developers had experience of this plant, and relied on landscape contractors with experience of getting rid of it.

Others paid the price for their lack of knowledge when houses, commercial developments and civil engineering projects were left contaminated with this damaging invasive species after inadequate measures were implemented to stop the plant from spreading.

The Code of Practice laid out land managers’ and contractors’ responsibilities, as well as best practice for dealing with Japanese knotweed surface growth, rhizome and soils containing Japanese knotweed, and introduced many to the concepts of cross-contamination, clean sites, knotweed management plans and methods for remediation.

In the years that followed, specialist companies emerged who were dedicated to dealing with Japanese knotweed and working with housing developers, civil engineers and land owners to minimise the damage that this invasive plant can cause.

The Japanese knotweed Code of Practice was updated as new technologies emerged, including stem injection and soil screening, and the code has remained a relevant and reliable resource throughout.

In 2012, Mike Clough of Japanese Knotweed Solutions brought together a group of long-established invasive species specialists to form what would become the trade body INNSA – a group dedicated to improving standards in the invasive species industry. As part of their drive to ensure that clients receive reliable, consistent performance from invasive species contractors, the INNSA Standards were launched. These best-practice guidelines – based on the requirements laid out in the EA code – provide peace of mind and a demonstration of the quality and expertise of all contractors who work according to these stringent criteria.

In 2016, the Environment Agency withdrew the Japanese Knotweed Code of Practice due to new government guidelines. In order to maintain the key facts of the document and preserve access to the guidance it contained, the document was provided to the leading organisations in the field of invasive species remediation.

After significant work by respected industry figures, in March 2017, INNSA released the new Code of Practice – Managing Japanese Knotweed, which will continue the legacy of the EA Code.

The document will continue to provide guidance for land owners, land managers and contractors In order to best prepare them for works in this field. New information has been added regarding current legislation, pesticides and the Code also includes the INNSA Standards, revised in light of the latest guidance from the Environment Agency.

As the leading body dedicated to the invasive species industry, INNSA will continue to update and maintain the Code in the public domain for the good of the industry, our members and their clients.

Chris Oliver, Operations Manager, Japanese Knotweed Solutions

Green Stuff May 31, 2017

In the area where I live we are charged for the removal of garden waste bins. This is a relatively new development and I know that it winds a lot of people up. However, I have thought about it and actually I don’t mind this – even though we do have a garden, and it’s going to cost me money.

I like tax (although there would be a limit to that statement). Hear me out – I am serious.

Taxes facilitate the pooling of resources and group buying power, and can result in ambitious projects that wouldn’t otherwise have been put in place (e.g. the railways, the National Grid, motorways, the internet). Council taxes pay for policing and fire service, which we hope never to need, but which we expect to be able to rely upon.

Tax also allows vulnerable people to be protected when they can’t afford it (the sick, the disabled, pensioners, for example).

If a referendum were held in my area to increase council taxes by 5% to emergency services, social care and services for the community, I would vote in favour – though I am lucky enough to be able to afford the £50 or so a year that it would cost. If such a referendum was passed, the local council would have millions of pounds more to spend (though hopefully not on boardroom tables and Beyoncé concerts).

But instead of putting this to a vote, my council has decided to make many of its services elective for those who need and/or can afford them. Again, I am in favour of this for non-essential services, as it allows the council to continue to increase its budget in line with government restrictions, but increase the proportion of that budget it can spend on more essential services like social care which people aren’t generally in the position to pay for on their own.

The only drawbacks that I see about charging for green bins are that firstly, it provides a disincentive to people for having gardens. However, the cost of a green bin or a trip to the tip relative to paying for your garden to be paved over is very small – and of course, you could always compost more, and use waste more creatively to create habitats or garden features.

The other drawback is increased fly-tipping, which is already reaching epidemic levels in UK towns and cities due to the increased costs of sending material to landfill. This is more of a problem, but actually an indirect one – as any householder with a vehicle can tip green waste free of charge. The problem is more likely to arise out of situations where householders look for cheaper disposal solutions and end up driven in to the arms of cowboy waste disposers – who absolutely are a cause of problems – including the spread of Japanese knotweed.

Unfortunately, it has always been the case the Japanese knotweed is a problem for individuals rather than taxpayers at large; our chance to eradicate this problem completely has long since passed.

Now, with mortgage lenders requiring insurance-backed guarantees before they lend on properties with Japanese knotweed, there is much more of a widespread burden on UK householders to pay for Japanese knotweed treatment. Unfortunately, this can be quite a lot more expensive than a green bin disposal, and most people face the costs on their own, through no fault of their own.

Chris Oliver, Operations Manager, Japanese Knotweed Solutions Ltd

Where’s the quality…? May 31, 2017

Where do you go to find quality service nowadays? I find myself harping on about this all the time but it is something that really gets on my nerves. All the time we are being bombarded with ‘special offers’ and websites claiming to find the ‘cheapest hotel/insurance/holiday’ etc etc supermarkets claim to help our pockets with ‘pushing prices down’ or telling us that ‘every little bit helps’…but most of the time all they are selling us is… crap.

bpzp. hotels, crap insurance, crap food in crap supermarkets…. all run by people that aren’t paid enough to give a crap.

I know, I know – the way to stop these type of sales techniques is to just stop using whatever service it is that they are offering. But – unfortunately it kind of pervades into every aspect of your life. Because supermarkets try and be very cost effective, this trickles down into every aspect of the supplier chain. So …when a new supermarket is built…every part of the supplier chain must also be subject to the price test? Are they the cheapest supplier are they offering the best value for money…???

Now we get to the point of this blog – my particular industry is a little odd. It is a ‘new’ industry and as such is continually developing the services that it offers. There are very few ‘ground rules’ and the type of service offered is still shrouded in mystery.

Lets just say there are ‘grey areas’ – areas where jobs can be won or lost on an offer of something that just isn’t true. Warranties are a great way of winning works – if you offer a ten year guarantee it sounds a good selling point. Look closely at this offer and you realise that an ‘in-house’ warranty just isn’t worth the paper that it’s written on. I still get a smile on my face when I see an ‘in house’ warranty on a piece of thick paper with a border round the edge to make it look kosher, it makes it look ‘official’ …but its worthless.

To try and combat this Japanese Knotweed Solutions Ltd set up INNSA (The Invasive Non-Native Specialists Association – www.innsa.org).

We contacted all the major players in the market and set up a trade body which would ensure that all members adhered to a set of guiding principles that would remove the ‘smoke and mirrors’ form the table. All members would offer a set of agreed services within similar parameters. Warranties would be comparable and all be insurance backed – so that clients comparing cost estimates would be able to compare ‘like for like’ and make a decision based on the competitive nature of the works offered, rather than by being lulled in with a fake insurance scam.

All well and good – apart from the fact that there is no current legislation obligating contractors to be a member of INNSA.

How can we get through to clients that the contractors that aren’t a member of a trade body are just loose cannons who have no morals??

We see new companies opening offices (usually from home) on an almost weekly basis – who then produce a website saying they are the number one ‘knotweed’ company in the UK (note – we don’t charge VAT) …. the prices they charge are ridiculously low – simply because they don’t know what they are doing…

We recently had one of these companies trying to buy tickets to our seminar. When we challenged them about their request for tickets they stated that they ‘wanted to learn more about Japanese knotweed …. whilst on their website it claims they are the ‘number one company on the north of England’…

I think my point that I am struggling to make is that you get what you pay for…

….and in a World, that strives for the cheapest of everything all that we will end up with …

….is crap.

Mike c

Under pressure… May 24, 2017

I was reading in the paper at the weekend how James Dyson (the inventor guy/multi-millionaire) only gets about six e mails a day. He has encouraged a philosophy of having face to face meetings with his colleagues and feels that this is a far better way of working. people who work together on the same floor or same building are given notebooks (hard copy not electronic) and told to jot ideas down then go and talk to the person they would normally be e-mailing.

Richard Branson another super successful guy – again minimal e-mails and encourages face to face meetings ….

Multiple e-mails clogging our inboxes are now seen as the death of creativity and consume so much of our time as to be positively caustic to the modern work environment.

Me – well I get six e-mails a minute informing of everything from a lack of toilet rolls to the latest gossip from the water-cooler…if I stop answering and responding to this constant barrage of information I would get so behind that it would be impossible to ever get back up to speed.

This is why I don’t take holidays, this is why I don’t like being off sick…this is probably why I will die from some stress related illness on the day that I retire.

Why do we put ourselves under the pressure that we do? Deadlines, targets, weekly, monthly, quarterly, annually …. comparing current performance to the figures which we have challenged ourselves to achieve. This then just creates a scenario where we become like the hamster on its wheel – the faster we go the faster we have to run to keep up with the speed of the wheel.

I have conversations with my accountant and my bank manager about what I’m aiming to achieve in the coming year – but when I listen to myself I just think…. ‘jeez you are so full of sh*t…’ – I’m not actually … ‘planning to push for a % growth in net margin by increasing profitability across the group…’ …. the reality is that what is actually happening…. is that I’m running around like an idiot trying like hell just to meet the same figures as I did last year…and hoping that I can just remain static rather than lose out to my competitors.

How can this ever change?

I’m going with… little steps –

1.  No internal e-mails unless absolutely necessary

2. Do not copy everyone in on an e-mail when there is no reason to do so

3. Talk to your colleagues more –

4. Brainstorm more

5. Focus more on current projects and making sure these are done to the highest of standards

6. Worry less about future trends

7. Concentrate on getting your current message clearly focused

I’m thinking that if you get what you do today, done well – then the future will take care of itself.

Mike C

Breaking news May 17, 2017

Nuclear weapons – ‘of no use …in war on Japanese knotweed’

In case any of you were wondering – given current events – the answer is yes…Japanese knotweed can withstand a direct hit from a nuclear warhead.

*Donald trump has been quoted as saying … ‘We tried the mother of all bombs on the mother of all weeds… but it had no impact’.

**Mr Kim Jong-un was quoted as saying… ‘Mother f***ing knotweed, b***ard’

 

Mike C

*possibly made up

** definitely made up

Desperate to be liked… May 10, 2017

Social media…what a load of old bo***cks.

We never had social media when I first set up in business and we managed all right. In fact we managed very well thank you…so why the hell do we suddenly feel left out if we don’t get ‘liked’ on bloody Facebook or Linked in.

In fact are Facebook and Linked in …. ACTUALLY… THE SAME BLOODY THING….

In my day (cue violins) – the closest you ever got to ‘social media’ was being ‘social me dear’ at the pub. This involved endless visits to lap dancing bars and strip clubs with contracts managers and quantity surveyors to ensure that you got on tender and approved supplier lists…. I hated it *…

These sort of goings on have all been quite rightly binned – for being sexist and misogynistic as well as obviously open to blackmail and inappropriate work relationships based on dodgy deals struck over drunken behavior…. yet somehow you did at least know where you stood.

Nowadays I’m told that I must have a ‘Twitter profile’ and a ‘Linked in’ account as well as having a Company Facebook page. When I say I’m ‘told’ i mean that my advisors (who look about 11 years old) tell me that without said ‘profiles’ …I don’t actually exist …and will never get any work.

At what point did all this happen?

At what point did I stop going to see strippers and start seeing Tweeters???**

 

Mike ‘dinosaur’ Clough

*…this may be a lie

** …I’m now thinking some sort of combined stripper/twitter account could be an interesting way forward…???

It takes all-sorts… May 3, 2017

A business is like a cake – you take lots of weird ingredients which on their own might seem a bit odd – mix them all together ….and something wonderful comes out with icing on and butter cream in the middle.

Radcliffe – where our offices are located is a bit weird. It’s a bit ‘Northern’ and a bit ‘hard’ the people are not exactly chatty and don’t take easily to new people – we’ve only been there 15 years so are still classed as the ‘new neighbours’ …. but…once you get to know people they are the salt of the earth. The location is near to the motorway and generally works well for getting around the country being close to M6 and M1 and well as multiple cross country routes.

Pulling our teams apart and separating the ingredients you probably wouldn’t want to ever just deal with me (Mike Clough). I’m a bit of an arse, I’m arrogant, a bit of a know all and I generally think that my opinion is always right…. but…. water me down with a bit of Alex (younger, better looking and far more like-able than me) and a bit of Ann (younger better looking and far nicer than me) …and you get a good result.

It should also be noted that most of the time when you ring for me – you will end up speaking to Suzanne anyway – and she is far nicer than me.

Looking at the site lads – I’ve got to admit there are one or two that I wouldn’t want to meet on a dark night – these are BIG, HARD AS NAILS lads …which when taken on their own they can look a bit scary. Add a bit of Phil… (worked for me forever and my brother by another mother) … and suddenly you have a better mix and a softened version of the team. Not that Phil isn’t – ‘hard as nails’ – he’s just a bit more ‘approachable’ …. which makes the site lads a better group to work with for our clients.

We have a team of lads that drive round the country checking on the progress of our eradication strategies. They are fairly solitary types not used to long conversation limiting themselves to simple communication along the lines of – ‘it’s dead’ …’it’s nearly dead’ …or …’it’s about to be dead’. Again, if you were to meet these lads on their own…you may well run for the hills feeling a little like you had wandered into a film about ‘hillbillies’ who had little contact with human kind…. but …add them into a mix of our admin department and updates from site and they are a huge asset for JKSL.

A business needs this ‘mix’ of ingredients. a cake made just with eggs and nothing else – just wouldn’t work. A business made just from an accounts department wouldn’t work. Just having surveyors …wouldn’t work. Site lads and nothing else …sorry, again…just no…

…but a mix of all of the above – lovingly stirred together by chef mike – delicious.

I love seeing the interaction of the teams and the constant humor and banter that goes back and forth between them all – this is what makes a business work.

This is what makes the cake.

I’m just a baker – I like putting all the ingredients together and seeing what comes out.

Mike C