Young People shine at awards night
On Thursday 25th October, over 68 people attended the finalist’s presentation evening for the 2018 West Gippsland Trade Training Alliance Young People’s Excellence Awards held at the Baw Baw Skills Centre. The awards are a celebration of young people who are making a positive contribution to their training, workplace and future. Open to all VETiS, Apprentices, Trainees, School Based Apprenticeships & Traineeships (SBAT) and young people aged between 15-21 who have undertaken some aspect of training/skill development, through the West Gippsland Trade Training Alliance in the previous 12 months.
Thanks to the awards major sponsor, the Victorian Skills Commissioner and minor sponsors FGM Consultants and Baw Baw Latrobe LLEN prizes some fantastic prizes were awarded. Sponsors all noted the importance of upskilling young people in the local region, to help meet the future needs of local business and industry.
It was a very difficult choice, with Four Award categories and a large number of nominations the eleven finalists; Patrick Anderson, Riley Brown, Jeremy Cadzow, Jessica Clark, Mason Coppens, Blake Davis, Miranda Knight, Jessie Okeefe, Joshua Ronalds, Tim Ruddell and Benjamin Scott were all very deserving of being announced as winners of their category.
The Apprentice Award went to Jessica Clark, who is studying her Cert 3 in Automotive with Federation Training and working with Trafalgar Tractors now known as TTMI.
The Traineeship Award went to Miranda Knight, who has a traineeship with Ken Lawrence and is studying a Cert 3 in Agriculture with Federation Training.
The School Based Apprentice (SBAT) award was a particularly difficult one to judge, as there were two young people we couldn’t separate. We had joint winners being: Benjamin Scott, who is completing an SBAT with Platinum Electrics and studying a Cert 2 in Construction Pathways with Apprenticeships Group Australia and Joshua Ronalds, who is completing an SBAT at Flavorite Hydroponics in Warragul and studying a Cert 2 in Horticulture with GOTAFE.
We had a significant amount of entrants for the VETiS Award so we awarded one VETiS Encouragement Award and two winning VETiS Awards.
Riley Brown, who is studying a Certificate 2 in Horticulture at Community College Gippsland received the VETiS Encouragement Award. Whilst Jessie O’Keefe, a current year 10 student studying a VETiS Cert 2 in Building and Construction at Drouin Secondary College and Patrick Anderson, who is studying a VETiS Cert 2 in Agriculture at Federation Training.
We would like to thank and congratulate all of the young people involved in this year’s awards, the quality of applicants was extremely high.