Thank you to all of you who attended the 64th LASRA Conference at James Cook in Wellington. We all thoroughly enjoyed meeting up with friends old and new, and having the opportunity to show you some of the work being conducted at LASRA on your behalf. Pen drives with all the presentations have been sent out, so look out for yours in the postbag.
New this year was the incorporation of the Student Awards into the Conference Dinner. This seemed to work out, so we’ll be reviewing it for inclusion in next year’s program. The great thing about doing it this way is it allows us to invite the students to the LASRA Conference, so well done to Rowan for coming up with the idea.
Three award winners were able to attend this first year, and it reinforced how important the connection is with our generous sponsors of the student awards.
A total of 6 awards are presented annually to the highest achieving students in the Introductory, Fellmongery, Advanced Course Year 1 and Year 2 courses.
The top student in our first year running the Fellmongery Course was Sam Sharp of Alliance Freezing Works, Lorneville. Sam received the Chemcolour Award and a cheque for $1000 from David Thompson. Sam was unfortunately unable to attend the Conference due to prior arrangements and on-going business commitments, but we congratulate him on his success and wish him all the best for the future.
The Shamrock Award of $1000 goes to the highest performing student on the Introductory Course. The Introductory Course offers basic understanding of the principles of leather manufacture, and has the highest enrolment of all four courses. Competition is typically very fierce, but the award this year went to Turi Ratahi of Tasman Tanning in Whanganui.
Runner-up on the Introductory Course and the recipient of the Interchem Award and a cheque for $500 was Deepak (Raj) Singh of Wallace Corp, Waitoa, seen here receiving his award from Arron Stewart of Interchem during the Conference Dinner.
The Lanxess Award for the top student in the 1st year of the Advanced Course went to Scott Hilton of Casino Hide Tanners, NSW. Scott recently attended the Block Course in Palmerston North, but was unable to make it to the Conference. However, Steve Cartlidge of Lanxess was able to catch up with him at the Casino plant to present him with his award and cheque for $500.
There was a very close race for the awards in the second year of the Advanced Course, but the eventual runner-up was Ashleigh Hankin of AFFCO, Napier. Congratulations to Ashleigh, who received the Dominion Salt Award and a $500 cheque from Brett Hobson of Dominion Salt.
The final award of the evening was the Allied Colour Award which is awarded to the top student in the 2nd year of the Advanced Course, and includes a fully paid trip to the Shanghai Leather Fair. This year’s recipient was Aisea Tupou of AFFCO Wiri, who received his award from Howard McConachie of Allied Colour.
David Thompson of Chemcolour was able to catch up with Sam Sharp, recipient of the top award on the Fellmongery Course at Alliance Lorneville to present him with his award and cheque for $1000. Dick Harper was in attendance to congratulate him on his good effort, achieved whilst also undertaking considerable travel commitments in his role within Alliance.
Congratulations to all the award winners, and thank you to the award sponsors for their continued support of Industry Training.