A Forth Valley College Painting and Decorating Modern Apprentice is still in with a chance of making this year’s SkillBuild final.
Callum Bonner (19) from Tullibody – a third year MA with Clackmannanshire Council who attends FVC’s Falkirk Campus one day a week – finished runner up in a regional heat of the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) competition held at South Lanarkshire College in East Kilbride on Thursday 4 May.
He will find out on June 29 (when the final heat is held at the College of West Anglia) if the points he was awarded from his stencilling, wall-papering, painting and sketching at the event will be enough to get him to the 2017 SkillBuild National Final, which will once again be held at the NEC Birmingham and will take place between 16-18 November.
Callum, said:
“I am happy with the outcome of the heat as there were ten competitors from all over Scotland there. There is still the possibility of making it to the final as it depends on the whether I was one of the highest scorers. It would be great to go to the final as I like the atmosphere of taking part in a competition.
“I like training at the college as part of my MA and the lecturers have really helped me prepare for the competition. I would definitely recommend the MA programme and my advice to anyone thinking about it would be to stick in a work hard.”
FVC Painting and Decorating Lecturer, Graeme Williamson, said:
“Callum has done very well and put a lot of hard work into getting ready for the SkillBuild heat. He was unlucky not to have won the heat and he still might make it to the final which would be brilliant. We are all very proud of him.”
The SkillBuild competition has been running for more than 45 years. The competition sees the very best in construction talent compete against each other to be crowned the SkillBuild winner in their chosen craft occupation.