February Update

As this is the first blog for the year, I would like to say Happy New Year to you all. 2013 is well underway and WorldSkills Australia (WSA) has hit the ground running. Final preparations are being put in place for the 2013 Youth Forum and Regional Workshop with both events integral to the ongoing development of WSA.

The Youth Forum, our second, following a very successful event in Adelaide in 2010, provides past competitors, our future business leaders and the future of WSA with the opportunity to share their thoughts and insights while the Regional Workshop affords us all with the opportunity to hear from the coal face of WSA – the Regions. I look forward to welcoming all delegates to Melbourne in the final week of February.

On the competition front, the 42nd WorldSkills Competition in Leipzig is fast approaching and all members of Team Australia are ‘ramping’ up their training. As always, we need to raise significant funds to get the 2013 Team Australia Skillaroos to Germany. While we have received very generous support to date, the more we raise, the more training opportunities we can provide to the Skillaroos. If you can help, please do not hesitate to contact the WSA National Office. Of course, all of the 2013 Skillaroos started their WSA journey at the regional level and 2013 is a Regional Competition year.

I will be speaking to regional representatives at the upcoming Regional Workshop and urging them that our collective goal should be to encourage as many young Australians to take the WSA challenge – starting with the 2013 Regional Competitions. Who knows, it could be the start of a tremendous skills journey.