Yorkshire will be represented in a celebration of the talent and world class skills of young people across the nation as UK Skills creates a garden at the internationally renowned RHS Chelsea Flower Show, taking place from 25th – 29th May, 2010.
The UK Skills garden, entitled: “Growing World Class Talent: celebrating the workforce of tomorrow”, will be created to promote excellence in vocational education and training and also to illustrate how greater investment in skills and development will help lift UK industry out of recession. The garden’s design was chosen on its merit by the RHS for inclusion in this year’s Chelsea Flower Show and will showcase the wide range of skills required to construct an outdoor space suitable for 21st century living. The garden will be judged in the Urban Garden category at the Show.
A team of talented young people, all under the age of 25, will build the UK Skills garden from scratch using their expert skills which include: landscape gardening, bricklaying, electrical installation, cabinet making, plumbing, floristry and stonemasonry. All the skills represented in the Chelsea garden are also present at the biennial WorldSkills Competition, the world’s largest international skills competition for young people.
The team creating the UK Skills garden will comprise past UK WorldSkills competitors as well as upcoming, talented individuals who are looking to secure a place in Team UK for the next WorldSkills Competition, which comes to London from 5th – 8th October 2011.
The UK Skills team at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show will be overseen by Harry Turner, a WorldSkills training manager in Landscape Gardening (incidentally from Askham Bryan College in York).
The team members include:
- Keith Chapman, 24, from Richmond, North Yorkshire: WorldSkills Shizuoka (Japan) 2007 competitor in Landscape Gardening. Awarded with a Medallion For Excellence.
- Grant Finch, 19, from Scarborough: WorldSkills Calgary 2009 Squad UK member in Landscape Gardening, hoping to secure a place in Squad UK for WorldSkills London 2011.
- William Gadd, 22, from Bury St Edmunds: WorldSkills Calgary 2009 competitor in Landscape Gardening. Awarded with Medallion For Excellence.
WorldSkills London 2011
The biennial WorldSkills competition, hosted by UK Skills, will be held at ExCeL London, from 5th-8th October, 2011. Over 1,200 competitors, from 50 countries/regions will compete in 45 skills from landscape gardening to hairdressing and robotics and from bricklaying to cooking and aircraft maintenance. The UK is currently ranked 6th in the world in the medals tables. UK Skills is aiming to secure a top five medal count ranking when the event takes place on ‘home turf’ in 2011.
Simon Bartley, CEO, UK Skills, said: “The UK Skills garden will provide us with a perfect platform on which we aim to demonstrate and showcase to the world the breadth of young talent that is present among the UK’s most skilled and dedicated vocational trainees.”
For more about WorldSkills 2011, please visit www.worldskillslondon2011.com