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WorldSkills London 2011
Going Global
Last year Crown Trade took its investment in skill development to a global dimension by sponsoring the world’s largest vocational skills competition. The professional paint brand was the main sponsor of the Painting and Decorating competition at WorldSkills, a spectacular international skills extravaganza which symbolised the pinnacle of excellence in vocational training.
“Skill Olympics”
A thousand exceptional young people, drawn from skill heats held in 50 different countries, competed in the biennial WorldSkills competition (formerly known as the ‘Skill Olympics’) which covers seven vocational sectors ranging from ‘Creative Arts and Fashion’ to ‘Construction and Building Technology’. Each team member was specially selected to represent his or her country in one of 45 individual skill categories, competing against their peers from around the world in intensive four-day battles to find the ‘best of the best’.
London Hosting WorldSkills 2011
Between 5 -8th October 2011, WorldSkills London 2011 was held in the UK for only the third time in its 61-year history. ExCel London, the international exhibition and conference venue hosted the event and welcomed over 200,000 visitors.
Why Crown Trade sponsored the Painting and Decorating competition
“When we discovered that WorldSkills was coming to London, we were very keen to get involved as a sponsor. It was a logical move as we are already closely involved with WorldSkills. Here in the UK, our Crown Trade Apprentice Decorator of the Year Competition provides the only route for the country’s most talented young decorators to progress into this unique international skills event.
“For the past three decades we have shown the UK market how much we care about the future of our industry by encouraging our young painters and decorators to strive for excellence and achieve their full potential. WorldSkills London 2011 provided us with a fantastic opportunity to demonstrate that commitment from a global platform and to enhance our profile and project our brand values around the world.” Debbie Orr - Crown Trade Senior Brand Manager.
What other benefits were there?
All the paint used by the UK squad whilst in training for the competition was provided by Crown Trade. Competitors therefore benefitted from the latest developments in coatings technology and had confidence that they were using premium quality products that helped them achieve top results. At the four day WorldSkills event itself, every international competitor will also completed all the painted elements of their challenging test piece using Crown Trade coatings.
Crown Trade was also involved in training the members of the UK Squad and helped to develop their skills to the highest level in readiness for the competition. This was very rewarding for the Crown Trade team, especially the training experts, as they were able to stay involved with the development of apprentices who had already excelled in the national competition, and to watch them reach their full potential.
Who represented the UK?
After a hard fought elimination process, Rachel Terras from Galashiels, made it through several gruelling elimination rounds to earn her place. Rachel finished a respectable 10th place in the competition. The standard in 2011 was exceptional and it was obvious that the international competitors had benchmarked themselves against the quality of Mark Nevin, the Team UK winner of the competition in 2009.
Please visit www.worldskillslondon2011.com for further information about the competition.
Click here to view the WorldSkills 2011 squad crowntradetv