Once we had our licence we began the process of getting work. This is the moment to to explain about theArgyll Fencers’ Co-op’s directors. There’s me, I deal with the paperwork, and three lead fencers. It’s the fencers themselves who are the key to making the Co-operative work. Three people who would once have been in competition with one another, who have their own ideas on fencing and quoting, who even have different ways of working. At present one employs their fencers through CIS, one has self-employed sub-contractors and one runs a gang who are directly self-employed each billing the Co-op or their client direct. Unless they can reach agreement on quotes and jobs the whole enterprise falls to the ground. Here’s the amazing thing; they can, they could right from the beginning. I think it works because they’re not only very intelligent men but because they’re willing to put the interests of everyone above their own individual concerns.
Of course any member is welcome to have their say but the reality is that being a director isn’t an easy job. You have to be prepared to put in hours of slog looking at fencelines that may never turn into work and collecting information that feeds back into risk assessments and method statements. Then there are the meetings, exhausting sessions after work should be finished for the day relaying your impressions of a fenceline to the others who haven’t seen it and working out prices with due regard to what each member will need to be paid and what the market will bear. We do try to involve other members partly so that they can learn and partly of course so we don’t have to bear sole responsibility! As I said, not an easy job and credit to the men who step forward to serve.
We had a lot of help right from the beginning, some of the forest managers from private companies including Tilhill and Scottish Woodlands have been very supportive and encouraging. The Forestry Commission are truly wonderful at explaining precisely what they need from us and also in driving up standards both of fencing and of health and safety. We also made full use of the courses on public procurement and related subjects from people such as Business Gateway
The finances of the Co-op were set up to be simple. The members work out the price for a job and then we add 5%. That 5% pays for insurance (a huge cost), accountancy fees, any other professional services needed such as environmental reports or health and safety advice. If there is anything left over I get it as payment for doing the tenders, risk assessments, method statements and general co-ordinating. Some years there is and some years I end up subsidising the Co-op. If anyone is looking to do a similar thing then I suggest increasing the percentage but I’m not planning on doing so. This is something I dreamed about doing and making a profit from it just wouldn’t feel right.
Two years on from our inception and the Gangmasters’ Licencing Authority decreed that forestry fencing was no longer within the scope of the Act. On the face of it it looked as if our reason for existing was gone. The reality was that we had found far better reasons for existing.
Once rival fencers stop circling one another like stags and get to talking it is amazing what they learn from one another. I think everyone’s work had improved and all had learnt tweaks and tips from one another. It can be difficult to have another fencer check your work but the benefits are huge, and after all what fencer doesn’t have a surreptitious look at other people’s work whenever he passes it? Working together to assimilate new requirements particularly health and safety requirements does make them easier to cope with. On a long day when the temptation to just nip and collect that tool on the bike might see a fencer set off without a helmet then the thought that the whole Co-op might get a black mark if he is caught can tip the balance. For the lead fencers it has become a case of explaining to new lads that together we stand and together we fall rather than a senseless demand which only he is making. No-one really wants to face a whole co-op and explain himself.
On the whole clients preferred working with the Co-op. They might not like the idea of 5% but it starts to seem cheap when they realise what running a sizeable job entails. The ease of paying one company, having all the necessary paperwork done for them and knowing that they have the whole co-op’s skills and expertise to call upon should something go wrong or timescales get tight, that is worth a little extra.
As for tenders, there is no contest as to what works best for the fencers. One man bands or small groups just don’t have the time to spare to be doing endless tenders. Even as a Co-op we have to pick and choose which present a real chance of work and which would simply be a paper exercise. Together we can provide a far better service to clients than we can as individual businesses and many jobs are simply too large for one person to tackle or even be considered for.
Then there are the resources. Five years on we are accustomed to juggling not just machines but men, no-one needs the whole panoply of bikes, different sized track machines, thumpers, specialist rock tools, even advanced chainsaw certificates. We have it all between us and so we share. Better yet if a lead fencer has to take time out for lambing his boys are simply re-assigned to another team and learn a lot in the process. There are no stops for necessary tasks in the agricultural year for those not involved in them, time off for an operation or something similar is no problem, and if one person has too much work and another not enough then they share knowing the favour will be returned. Best of all there is a realistic prospect for every boy on the lines that one day he will end up running his own team if he chooses.
I wasn’t entirely sure that this was going to work when we started but it has and beyond what I imagined possible. That success is entirely due to the fencers, they have worked hard for it and it hasn’t been easy, all credit to them for creating something quite wonderful. One of the fencers we work with has a phrase when he is asked how things are going – “Living the dream, just living the dream boy”, this was a utopian dream and we’re living it.
