WorldSkills New Zealand

Annual General Meeting 2009

CEO Report

Thank you all for making the effort to attend this meeting and thank to Fiona Haynes and CPIT for being wonderful hosts for this meeting and also for being hosts for the WorldSkills national Finals in September 2010

The purpose of this meeting is so that we can develop an ongoing relationship with the regions and to provide an opportunity for interaction with the Trustees.

I will make comment about the recent trip to Calgary. This was my second international competition, but my first in terms of taking a team that had been developed under my tenure. There was a completely different dynamic in this team and it certainly raised some questions about the way we do things, which we have been debating this morning at a trustee strategy meeting.

The team came home with 6 medals of excellence. If you consider that one of the main reasons we get involved in international competition is to benchmark our trade education then you would come away saying that without doubt, a world-class education is available to anyone in NZ in the these trades as long as they reach out and embrace it.

You would come away saying that help is there for anyone who asks, shown by those who gave of their time and funds to train and get the competitors from the various categories to the international competition.

That is not to say that we could not have done better.

We had several issues that surely could not happen again, which affected the performance of the team and at the international level there is very little between first and fourth, so a small irritating factor has a large impact.

It was great the see an increasing amount of media reports at provincial level in regional newspapers and also trade associated newsletters and the like. Also interesting to note that despite some les than positive media attention around our attendance in relation to the H1N1 incident we still did not get any response positive or negative on our return. What do you have to do!

It was great to have support for the automotive competitors and printing competitors to name a few who had some faces from their respective industries to welcome them home. We have a few ideas to develop in the future to endeavour to loose our mantle as a “fantastic well kept secret”

Some of the factors which affect us are a factor of funding and some are to do with the training and some are to do with candidate drive and determination.

We have been discussing this morning whether we want to send a well prepared smaller team to get great results which would enhance the perception of the organisation, its ideals, and its people or to drive to have a larger team across more categories and take the probable drop in results but take the benefits, in relation to benchmarking, networking etc that come from attendance the competitions regardless of results.

We have also been discussing the idea of taking say the top two or three winners from a competition, preparing all three and taking the best after a further selection process.

Other issues have been expert selection, issues relating to regional input to the decision making processes of the organisation.

I would like to refer you to the charts from the Technical Delegate’s report which give a comparison of the performance of this team compared to previous teams in each category where we have sent teams.