Weekend of Worldskills in Waikato

Weekend of Worldskills in Waikato

Worldskills, the national workplace skills competition, is in Waikato this weekend.

Almost 100 apprentices and trainees from 20 professions will meet to compete at Wintec in Hamilton from 3 to 6 July.

ServiceIQ is supporting 18 of these young achievers in cookery, aircraft maintenance, restaurant service, and visual merchandising.

Each contestant will be tested on specific skills essential in their trade. Visual merchandisers, for example, must plan and design a window display, then complete it and explain their design to the judges. The judges themselves are highly experienced in each trade.

Competitors from all over the country have already demonstrated their skills in regional finals, and now vie for the opportunity to represent New Zealand in the Worldskills Tool Blacks team. They will then take their skills to the world against finalists from 66 countries in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in August 2015.

Last year New Zealander Mike West of the RNZAF won a silver medal at the Worldskills International in Germany. The 2013 Tool Blacks also brought home four medals of excellence in the international competition, a considerable feat as the Kiwi team made up just 13 of the 1004 entrants.

This year’s Worldskills competitors will arrive at Wintec’s Rotokauri campus on Thursday afternoon, and compete over Friday and Saturday with the public welcome to view the action, and associated activities and displays, each day. The prize giving and Tool Blacks team announcement will be before lunch on Sunday 6 July.

ENDS

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