The 2019 Master Fitter Challenge winners are….
The winners of the 2019 Master Fitter Challenge in association with The FIT Show were Arron Clegg and Dave Eagles of Master Fitter Windows. Nickie West Event Director of the FIT Show was on hand to make the presentation to the winners and the other very worthy finalists on Skills Thursday during the show.
Speaking about the competition Nickie commented ‘I was delighted to have the opportunity to join the finalists prior to making the announcement of who had won. What came across was how important it was to them to do the job right, every time, and the more people there are in the industry who think this way the better it will be’.
‘It was really appropriate that we announced the winners as a part of Skills Thursday rather than at the gala dinner as we had done in previous years. It is all a part of building the Thursday to highlight skills across the whole industry and that will continue in 2020. Master Fitter Challenge is a major part of this drive to highlight and promote skills’.
Competition managers GQA Qualifications had prepared a different challenge for entrants to the 2019 competition – no final at the FIT Show itself, but live on the job assessments during their working day installing a range of products specifically chosen to test them to the maximum, followed by a staged individual final to assess the winner from the three highest scoring companies after the on-site assessments.
Speaking for GQA Qualifications Operations Manager Sean Hayes described the intensity of the challenge ‘you’d think that when guys have been installing windows for so many years, an assessor turning up on site to watch them wouldn’t affect them at all, but you’d be surprised how the level of intensity goes up’.
‘We know from previous years that those who enter this competition are absolutely passionate about their trade and displaying their skills every single day – it is great to see’.
‘We were delighted with the quality of the entrants again this year, and doing the assessments live on site is always a challenge we enjoy and an opportunity for us to learn’.
‘The final three companies each completed a further challenge to create and install a bay windows as conversion from a flat window including creating brackets and a roof. This was a really good challenge, and I would like to thank GQA centre Total Support Training for providing the opportunity for us to do this at their practical training centre. It provided a really comprehensive challenge for the finalists and gave the three judges who assessed each installation the opportunity to look at every last aspect of the work that was completed.’
‘Seeing the finalists all together on Skills Thursday at the FIT Show was a great reward for us as a GQA team and while we congratulate the winning team, we also congratulate the other two pairs of finalists, Simon and Scott Taylor from Nationwide Windows, and Dave Keates and Jon Mountford from DK Windows for a job really well done. All of their skills are exemplary, and they are a credit to themselves and to our industry’.
For more information about the Master Fitter Challenge and to find out how to enter the next competition visit www.masterfitterchallenge.co.uk
