Recently I reported on the announcement of awards for the NSW TAFE Bricklaying Apprentices of the Year, made on November 3 at the Masonry Contractors Australia (MCA) Annual Awards for Brick and Blocklaying Excellence.
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After a bricklaying career of an amazing 64 years Dante Gaspari is throwing in the trowel to go fishing. But in taking his well-deserved retirement, he can say in his time he’s built everything from embassies, to houses and schools to pizza ovens.
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The NSW Bricklaying Apprentices of the Year 2017 were announced earlier this month at the Masonry Contractors Australia (MCA) Awards dinner to mark this special event. Individual winners were selected by six of the seven NSW TAFEs and the awards were presented by the MCA and Australian Brick and Blocklayers Training Foundation (ABBTF).
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Last week there was another big competition happening in the Australian Brick and Blocklaying apprenticeship world with the 13th biennial Golden Trowel competition held from 15–17 October at TAFE NSW Nirimba in Western Sydney. For the fourth time in the life of the eleven year event, the winning team was Bathurst.
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Namoi Valley Bricks and its unique coal fired down-draft kilns were recently featured in Channel 7’s Better Homes and Garden’s television series when Australia’s largest agricultural equipment field day event, AgQuip, came to Gunnedah, in NE NSW. Namoi Valley Bricks is one of the nine brick manufacturer brand names that form the Australian Brick and Blocklaying Training Foundation (ABBTF), financially supporting bricklaying apprenticeships in Australia.
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NRL News reported this month on a new development in its scheme to support NRL players with genuine career options after football. Eden Brae Homes, already a strong advocate of continued learning and development for its team through its Pathways Program”, has now become a driving force in making the project of the NRL come to life.
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ABBTF and Pivotal Labour Hire & Training have joined forces to provide bricklayer recognition qualifications and awareness training for ten Zimbabwean 457 Visa Bricklayers helping them establish a new life in Sydney. Work has been organized for the group and they start later this week. Each member of the group is on a two-year work Visa with the opportunity to achieve permanent residency on completion.
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Tragically last week another death occurred in Sydney with a brick wall collapse, involving strong wind and a second serious accident occurred about 20 km from the first, also related to the weather. It was July last year when again strong winds were involved in the death of another bricklayer. Around the country we always have the potential for severe and erratic weather patterns which can be a real danger to bricklayers and other workers on building sites.
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You never know when you’re going to be put to the test: To have to decide to take responsibility and be accountable in an unpredictable but clearly life-endangered situation needing fast action.
As our apprenticeships industry body, ABBTF is very proud of 17 year old, second year bricklaying apprentice Kyuss Smith, of Gary Pollack Bricklaying, Orange NSW, for stepping up and acting when he did on April 21. He saved a life through his quick thinking and speed when another tradie fell down, and as Kyuss explains was ‘fitting and frothing at the mouth and his eyes rolling back in his head’.
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HIA’s NSW Executive Director, David Bare, recently called for greater effort in promoting and developing career choices in the trades to grow the future construction skill base. In the NSW e-NEWS, Mr Bare said “The focus is too heavily weighted toward gaining a professional qualification at university with few job opportunities at the end of it. If the Government of NSW is serious about maintaining housing supply as the key weapon to fight affordability, it must also acknowledge that developing the workforce to support it is crucial.
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