Ms Skills - From the Executive Director

Greetings from London, England, Day 7

Thanks to our new friend, Dr. Jane Lewis, from Cisco Systems Ltd., Ron and I had a very enjoyable “banquet” lunch at the Restaurant Servicing Contest.  Jane was very kind and gave us her tickets so we could join six others for a very memorable meal.  Our server was a very pleasant young woman from New Zealand.

We spent the entire day at the competition site from just after 9:00 a.m. and we just got back to our hotel a few minutes ago at 7:30 p.m.  Today I saw something I never imagined seeing at a skills competition; for the “Have a go” exhibit for refrigeration, students were given the instructions to make a key chain and when they were finished they used their key chain for entry into a small ice rink!

I will be bringing home lots of ideas for our summer camp program and possibly the elementary workshops at this year’s OTSC. 

It was nice to see Mary Wilson from WSIB at the Competition in England.  Mary arrived on Monday and left for home today.  Yesterday I saw Shaun Thorson, Carole Anne Ryan from Newfoundland, Claude Borque from Quebec, and Mark Bramer, the Canadian Expert in Cabinetmaking.  Jonathan Sinke, Cabinetmaking Competitor, was with Mark.  Johnathan’s family had a fundraiser for Jon in August of this year and Jon auctioned off two of his test projects for the London competition.  I was delighted to learn that the table I purchased is the project that they are making here in London.  It will always be a highlight of my London experience.

I stopped by the Mobile Robotic contest to speak briefly to Adrian Schut.  Adrian is to be commended; his co-competitor, Benjamin Church, took sick with the stomach flu in the middle of the night and was unable to participate so Adrian competed alone today.  They were sharing a hotel room but Adrian has been moved to a separate hotel room in the hopes that he won’t catch the bug that Ben has.  Please keep them in your thoughts.    I will be back at the competition site tomorrow morning and will report back again tomorrow night.

Good night for now,

Ms Skills - Gail Smyth
Executive Director

Ms Skills - From the Executive Director

Greetings from London, England, Day 6

I want you to imagine, if you can, a competition site that is three times larger than RIM Park in Waterloo and the host site for the Ontario Technological Skills Competition!  As I walked towards the Excel Centre and host of the 41^st World Skills Competition in London, England, I was informed by a guide that this site was 1 km in length and approximately ½ km in width and 1 million square feet – I know that for a fact because my feet are telling me that I walked 1 million square feet today.

All contest sites fit inside the Excel Centre including Gardening and Landscaping.  Today there were thousands of very young people visiting the site; these students were kept entertained because there were many, many hands-on activities for them to try under the caption “Give it a Try”.  I handed out maple sugar candies at the Skills Canada booth – they were a great hit with everyone.  I was pleased to note that the students were also very, very polite and always said please and thank you.

The Ontario students competing at this competition are all doing well; they may be nervous inside but they are all looking very calm, cool and collected.  I am proud to be here to witness their achievements.

It’s been another great day!  I will be back in touch again tomorrow.

Warmest regards,

Ms Skills - Gail Smyth

Executive Director

Ms Skills - From the Executive Director

Greetings from London, England, Day 5

Gary Cronkwright, Past Chair of the Board of Directors, arrived late last night – on time and with his luggage in hand.  We met for breakfast this morning and then spent the day on a sightseeing tour of beautiful London. I am glad to report that I had a wonderful, and very uneventful day.

We just returned from the Opening Ceremony for WorldSkills London and it was an absolutely amazing ceremony.  It began and ended with young people performing song, dance and drama from choirs from four nations:  Scotland, Ireland, England and Wales.  We have discussed for years the need to make sure the ceremonies were youth friendly and tonight it was on the mark!  It even started and ended on time, which was another first for a WorldSkills Opening Ceremony!

They announced that there were nearly 1,000 competitors from 50 countries competing over the next four days, and they are expecting over 200,000 visitors.

Tomorrow I will be heading to the ExCel Center for Day 1 of the competition.  We are becoming quite the experts when manipulating our way on the “Tube,” and tomorrow will be another new experience.  After having my first walk around the site, I will be staffing the booth at Canada House.


All the best,

Ms Skills - Gail Smyth
Executive Director

Ms Skills - From the Executive Director

It's finally here!  Team Canada is prepping and primping for the Opening Ceremonies of the World Skills Competition - WorldSkills London 2011.  Our very own Gail Smyth is on site and will be sending us daily updates!

Greetings from London, England:

At 2:00 p.m. on Friday, September 30^th, we (my husband, Ron, and I) arranged for a car to pick up at our house in Kitchener, Ontario and take us to the airport to pick us up for our 5:00 p.m. flight to Detroit.  The weather wasn’t terribly nice so we arrived at the airport shortly after 3:30 p.m. but still in lots of time to catch our flight.  Unfortunately, the flight from Detroit was late leaving Toronto so we arrived in Detroit 20 minutes before our flight to London was scheduled to leave.

The Captain was very reassuring – “Don’t worry, no one is going to miss their connection" ...famous last words.  Unfortunately, our gate seemed miles away from our departing gate and even though we ran most of the way, our names were being called in the distance and the plane left without us.

“Don’t worry,” said the young man at the gate, “we have you on a flight to Amsterdam.”  So we ran again but this time we were more fortunate even though we were the last two people on the plane.  We had an uneventful flight to Amsterdam; unfortunately we had a five-hour wait for our flight to London, England.  We have now been awake for 24 hours.

We arrived safely in London, England and spent the next 1½ hours waiting for our opportunity to speak to the Immigration Officer.  We were beginning to get a little edgy with each other, however, we anxiously went to collect our luggage and, guess what?  No luggage.  “Don’t worry,” said the nice gentleman at the complaint desk “you should have your luggage in two days.”

Disheartened, we nevertheless managed to figure out how to use the “Tube” and find our way to the Jenkins Hotel where we will be staying for the next ten days during the World Skills Competition.  I have a severe case of sleep apnea and, you guessed it, packed away in my missing suitcase is my sleeping machine so, needless to say, I have had a few very sleepless nights.

Obviously, without clean clothes, we haven’t strayed too far from our hotel waiting anxiously for our luggage to arrive.  I am pleased to report that at 12:00 noon today our luggage arrived safe and sound.


Gail Smyth
Executive Director

Skills Work!® On The Road - Hamilton/Niagara

To me September has always meant new beginnings.  I know it is fall, the season where things die and start to hibernate, but to Skills Canada-Ontario Liaison Officers the season of fall is when it all begins!

This is my first September with Skills Canada-Ontario and it has been busy! The first couple weeks of the new school year were spent in our head office in Kitchener.  All the liaison officers came together to learn this year's “Skills Work!® What’s Out There?” in-school presentation.  This year the presentation has surpassed all of our expectations!  I was excited to see how students would respond.

I hit the road to deliver my first presentations of the year is a tiny town called Fonthill in the Niagara region.  It was a beautiful day!  The students at Fonthill welcomed me to their country school along with two little mice that decided to join the presentation. The students were excited to learn about different opportunites available to them and were especially interested in Renewable Energy projects.  This doesn’t surprise me given that Fonthill has a Specialized High Skills Major focused on this topic. 

I also had a handful of girls interested in coming to the "Skills Work!® for Women" Networking Dinner in St. Catharines! This was exciting for me because this year I am planning the dinner.  These students were very excited to have the opportunity to meet other women who are already in skilled trade and technology careers.  I was thrilled to offer this opportunity to these girls.

Another exciting thing happened this week.  I was able to schedule a presentation at Parkview Secondary School.  Parkview is a unique inner city school dedicated to helping students who are considered “at-risk.”  The guidance counsellor was excited to take my phone call and thrilled that I would take the time to present to her students. There is so much potential in them, and because of government grants and scholarships, they can get a great education at an affordable cost.  I am looking forward to presenting at Parkview and show these students the opportunities that are available to them.  

That’s all for On The Road in the Great Lakes region.  I can’t wait to get out and present to more schools!


April Albano
School Liaison Officer