Student’s Night – a Night of Celebration and a Look to the Future
The recent ICME West Midlands, Birmingham and Coventry Branch Student’s night was a great success.
After a welcome from the Branch President, Karl Hopkins MICME, tutors Albert Anderson Prof MICME and David Hall Prof MICME spoke about the importance of the apprentice programme for the future of the UK industry. With many companies struggling to find new recruits, there was a clear need to bring in new talent and provide a future pipeline.
More tutors were needed, so there was an open invitation from David to anyone from the industry who was interested in ‘giving back to the industry’ through becoming a part-time tutor – and training for new tutors was available. Indeed, it was noted that the industry might need to make technical and experienced staff available for an agreed number of days annually, in order to support the training and development of future foundry technicians and to cover the full range of skills and competences required.
Each of the young apprentices, from just one of the apprentice cohorts currently on programme, was then invited to speak about their experiences and what they particularly enjoyed about the apprentice programme or their specific job role, using a short PowerPoint presentation. This was an important part of their wider professional development as speaking to a room of their peers from industry, most of whom had many years of experience was, to say the least, daunting. However, they had been well prepared by their tutors and acquitted themselves extremely well, to the great pride of their tutors.
Joseph Moseley MICME, an apprentice from Thomas Dudley Foundry, was then presented with his ICME Branch Apprentice of the Year Award, by Tony Bugea and Karl Hopkins MICME, – the prize included a cheque for £500, generously sponsored by Sibelco.
It was a huge pleasure for those attending in person (as well as all those who were listening-in remotely) to hear from these young people – their enthusiasm was encouraging – and to realise that the future for the industry is brighter!
If you were not able to attend and missed this event, then please see the event recording in the Members Area of the ICME website.
