If you asked me this time last year about taking part in the 2023 NZCB Apprentice Challenge
Sponsored by ITM, I would’ve told you that I most likely wouldn’t try again. I had a pretty
disastrous first attempt at the Canterbury regional challenge in 2022 which ended in me
feeling as if I needed to better myself a lot before I would consider retrying. Well, a lot can
happen in a year – a lot of personal and professional growth occurred, which made me feel a
bit better about the challenge… However I still wasn’t sold. But after a lot of pep talks with
my workmates and also my Ara apprenticeship assessor, Aaron Keech, I figured I would give
it a go again.
Since I was familiar with how the regional challenge went, I was able to be a lot more
relaxed and focus all of my attention on the build – a playhouse with an elevated floor,
climbing wall and pitched roof. It was an intense day but it was all worth it in the end, that
$500 prize from ITM was great!
Prior to the national challenge we were given brief details about what to expect and in this
time we were tasked with providing a formal covering letter, CV and work portfolio. It was
around now that I realised this is the real deal… I was about to be competing against the
best of the best apprentices from all over the country.
To ensure there was enough time to prepare, we also had to have our presentations ready –
a 2-3 minute speech with the topic “What is my favourite carpentry tool and why?” For a guy
who loves to joke around all the time this was a great opportunity to let my humour shine,
right? Wrong. My mind went completely blank for a few days while I tried to gather some
ideas. Spending the week at work didn’t help as much as I had hoped, either, I wasn’t able to
put my finger on just 1 tool that I loved more than the rest. After a lot of deliberation I landed
on the trusty orbital sander and the words just started flowing.
Fast-forward to the first official day of the national challenge – I just met the 20 incredible
apprentices I was up against and before we even had a chance for small talk we were sat
down at desks being told we had 2 hours to finish a written assessment that ‘We would
expect second year apprentices to be able to complete.’ Thanks Nick, no pressure.
After some chatter about how we all thought we did on the assessment, we were taken into
the room where the NZCB Conference & Expo was being held and saw the following day’s
challenge, but this time it was just for fun and didn’t play a part in our overall score. This was
the Great Apprentice Race, brought to us by Mitre 10. We were paired up with our hotel
roommates and tasked with building a trike and trailer using limited materials and tools. The
rules weren’t specifically that it had to have 3 wheels though, so the 4-wheeled bus that Sam
Keenan and I built was perfectly fine!
After the build phase on Friday morning we had some spare time – the race wasn’t until that
evening. Most of us spent our spare time walking around the expo, learning about a lot of
new products while also gathering a bunch of clothes, pencils and snacks.
Race time came around before we knew it but the bus that Sam and I built was poorly
engineered, resulting in it tipping over and losing a wheel (it’s a trike now!). The creativity of
the other groups was astounding, which really got me thinking that I was in trouble when it
came to our speeches. I was really hoping I could make my sander sound interesting now.
Needless to say, we didn’t win the race, but it was a great experience with nothing but smiles
and laughter.
After working myself up about the big, stressful interview I had coming up, the 3 judges
actually made it a very calm and relaxing environment. As I was the last interview I could
only hope that I left a good impression, surely they were getting bored after 21 interviews.
Following the interviews there was a small break that lead into presentation time for our
speeches, but with all the support from the other competitors it was more like talking to a
group of mates… a very large group of mates, most of which I hadn’t met because there was
an increasingly large number of people watching from the expo. It was pretty stressful but
2-3 minutes flew by.
The hard work was then over, we spent the rest of the afternoon getting to know each other
better and preparing for the big gala dinner where the winner would be announced. It was
clear that, although we had only just met a couple of days prior, there was unconditional care
and support for each other. After taking 1st place I would just like to thank everyone who has
been a part of this. There are too many people to list and I would hate to miss anyone but
none of it would be possible without NZCB and all of the great sponsors. It was a truly
unforgettable event and I couldn’t recommend it enough to anyone thinking about giving it a
go.
I look forward to seeing you all at the 2024 NZCB Conference & Expo
Alex Erickson
2023 NZCB Apprentice Challenge, Sponsored by ITM, Winner.
