I spent this afternoon catching up with one of FCTA – Building Careers recently completed apprentices, Jay Gerardis.   Jay is 21 and has just finished his bricklaying apprenticeship and completing the training required to apply for his builders licence. In Jays words, the best reasons to become a bricklayer are ‘being able to work the hours you want, be outside, not stuck in an office’ That’s when Jay looks at me in front of my computer and adds in ‘no offence’. 

Jay won the HIA Bricklaying Apprentice of the Year award in 2010, 2011 & 2012. This year he has been nominated in the SA Training Awards, for Apprentice of the Year. Jay got in to bricklaying after completing a week’s work experience. “You have to try it first, I was even thinking of doing tiling, but once I tried bricklaying I made my mind up. With the other trades you’re either stuck inside all day, or like carpenters, most the time people can’t see your work”. When I ask Jay about changes in the industry he talks about his concern about the possible price increases associated with the carbon tax and ‘green’ building, versus the benefits of building greener homes. “There’s definitely a move to these new 5 star energy efficient homes. I’ve worked on a few of them, and they are a bit more expensive but you have to think about all the money you’re going to save over the years, it’s worth it”.

The biggest shock for Jay once completing his apprenticeship was finding out about all the tax and financial issues during the training for his builders licence, “I was talking to this guy and saying, do you know you can claim all these things on your tax, and the guy had no idea, I just said, you’ve got to do the training!” Jay is currently working on a stone fronted house in the Adelaide Hills, “it’s a tough site, it’s like building on the side of a mountain, but it’s going to look great. You don’t mind the tougher sites when you work out how much you can earn by putting in the extra effort. I’ve built with Hebel, stone, block and brick, there’s lots of different ways to build. At the moment I’m working on a classic style house, there’s a trend getting back to that look, and red brick homes”. Jay is planning to hire his own apprentice once his business is up and running, “As an apprentice you think, how does the boss want it done, but then when you go to do it, you end up mixing what your boss has taught you with what you learn at trade school, that’s what’s best about it. I’m definitely hiring an apprentice, it was the best thing that happened to me”. 

Trisch Baff, Marketing & Project Manager,
FCTA – Building Careers

It was all there at the Skills West Expo August 19 to 20, as bricklaying apprentices from around the state battled it out in the regional bricklaying World Skills competition at the Perth Convention Centre.

Some 20,000 people visited the expo to see WA’s best of the best fight it out in this prestigious international competition.

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Most young men that participated in the event are in the prime of their lives, full of energy, great physics and in training!  The competition is designed to test their bricklaying knowledge, competency and all round dogged determination.

All competitors where given a project to build in clay brick and masonry as per the drawing detail. Millimetres made the difference between glory and heart ache!

In the final stages of the competition, each apprentice had to build a brick pier as high as they could in just 25 minutes (not a tower of Piazza to be seen anywhere!).  Check out the pics in the WA Gallery.

The who’s who of the bricklaying trade training fraternity was on hand to give support to these young chargers as they battled it out over the 2 days.

Training providers, employers and industry representatives where all very impressed with the all-round performance of each individual and the event itself got a lot of praise from the likes of Dale Alcock who visited the group whilst competing.

The state results for this event (Bunbury inclusive) were as follows: Gold = Alan Ramsden; Silver = Rhyse Moroney; Bronze = Samuel Long.

Well done to all the boys as they now prepare for the national finals in Sydney 2012 and if successful they could represent Australia in Leipzig Germany.

Dean Pearson
WA Bricklaying World Skills steering committee chair WA