16th Canadian Skills Competition

I'm excited to announce the start of the 16th Canadian Skills Competition, hosted in Waterloo, Ontario. This is a particularly noteworthy year, as it marks the 60th anniversary of WorldSkills International. It is also a qualifying competition for WorldSkills London 2011.

What's all the hype about? More than 500 students from across Canada are travelling to this extraordinary event, to represent their provinces and territories in over 40 different skilled trade and technology contest areas. Contests include cooking, precision machining, architectural CADD, aircraft maintenance, robotics, graphic design, hairstyling, cabinetmaking and welding (just to name a few). Similar to the Olympics, these bright young people will be competing for two full days to show judges their skills and hopefully bring home a gold medal. First place winners in many of the categories, provided they meet the age requirements for WorldSkills, will be moving on to represent Canada at WorldSkills London 2011!

This event is extremely close to my heart, as I was fortunate enough to have been involved with the competitions for two consecutive years, in the IT/Software Applications category. In 2007 I earned a gold medal at the nationals, and in 2008 another gold medal which landed me a spot on Team Canada. Last September I competed at WorldSkills Calgary 2009 and took 9th place, bringing back a Medallion of Excellence for my above-average score and an absolute ton of amazing memories. If you've been following my blog, you can read more about that experience in these posts. I'm eternally grateful for all of the support I've recieved over the years from family, friends, Skills/Compétences Canada and all of their sponsors. These competitions have given me a real confidence boost, along with the opportunity to really perfect my skills. I'm thrilled to be here this week at the Canadian Skills Competition to see the next group of youth showing their skills and starting their journey to represent Canada internationally next year in London.

If you happen to be in the area, I urge you to visit the competition - you'll find the various events at RIM Park and the Waterloo Memorial Recreation Complex and Swimplex. Opening ceremonies kicks off this evening, and competition will be underway tomorrow and Saturday (May 21 and 22, 2010). Sunday, May 23rd you'll find everyone on the edges of their seats as we present the medals to the lucky winners at the official closing ceremonies.

If you make it out to the competition, be sure to keep your eyes open for Team Canada 2009 members - there are a number of us who are here for this event. Best of luck to everyone involved!

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