This year Skills Canada introduced the very first National Youth Leadership Forum which was held in conjunction with this year’s Skills Canada Competition in Waterloo, Ontario. Each Skills Canada office selected one participant to represent their province or territory based on specific criteria such as being between the ages of 18 and 21, having previously participated in Skills Canada competitions or programs, having a good academic standing and possessing leadership qualities. I was lucky enough to be the one selected to represent Manitoba in this year’s National Youth Leadership Forum. J

Nine of us from across Canada participated in a four-day event that consisted of workshops, adventure challenges, guest speakers and a group project.

The purpose of the forum was to analyze Skills Canada programs across the country based on a predetermined set of criteria and to make recommendations for future programs. This was also an opportunity for us to learn and grow in our leadership potential and to take what we learned back to our home province or territory.

I flew from Winnipeg to Toronto. It was the first time I have ever been on a larger plane, so I was quite nervous.

DAY 1: NIAGARA FALLS & OPENING CEREMONIES

I didn’t realize that I would be travelling to Niagara falls on this trip until I was waiting for my plane at the Winnipeg airport. This was definitely a wonderful surprise.

When I arrived, I only had a few hours to explore the falls, so I joined some new friends (that I made on the bus ride there) and went directly to The Maid of the Mist.

We got a little wet…

But it was a blast!

Then it was a long walk back to the bus to head back to Waterloo… Niagara Falls was beautiful!

After the opening ceremonies of the Skills Canada Competition, we attended a VIP dinner where we met all the directors from across Canada and the Skills Canada Board. This was our first opportunity to meet our fellow National Youth Leadership Forum participants as well.

DAY 2: NATIONAL YOUTH LEADERSHIP ADVENTURE CHALLENGE

We started our morning off by heading to Chicopee Adventure Park in Waterloo. We participated in several adventure challenges as a form of team building and pushing our personal limits.

Our first challenge was the climbing wall… I had the luxury of climbing alongside our workshop speaker Stu Saunders, who seemed to want to make me laugh with every step I took, which didn’t make this adventure easy for me. It was fun, however.

Next, the ”log challenge” required us all to stand on a log and sort ourselves according to how old we were without stepping off the log, which eventually got more challenging as in the end we weren’t allowed to speak to each other.

We then got to the rope course that involves four teams switching sides, without touching the ground; this was eventually made more difficult as we went along with more rules to follow.

Another exercise involved using the same rope course but having to hold hands with your partner from the inside junction to the outside trees without letting go, with two people on the ground to help support you along the way.

Next was the spider web: we all started off on one side, and had to each make our way over to the other side, not touching the rope and only being able to use each opening once. However, once you got to the other side, you had to close your eyes soyou could no longer see. This was quite challenging as we had to come up with a method of getting everyone over while taking into account the size, height and strength of each person. The no-sight made things even harder as we had to try and tell those people where to go to catch the next person coming through.

Our last adventure was another rope course in which you had to make your way from one end to the other using hanging ropes to help you across. This was made more difficult as we went on; the person walking had to keep their eyes closed while someone on the ground had to help them across.

This was a very exciting day that allowed us to break the ice a bit and get to know each other. We finished the day off with a few hours of group work, getting to know a bit about each province or territory’s Skills Office and the types of programs they offer. It was quite interesting to me to see how different each programs actually is.

DAY 3: THE COMPETITION

We kicked off the morning by heading over to where the Skills Canada Competition was taking place and attending a VIP breakfast, where we greeted guests and mingled around to speak to other board members and share some information about the forum.

Here I am with some of the members of Skills Newfoundland.

Our emcee, Laurent Thibault of World Skills International, and a member of our Skills Manitoba board.

Following breakfast, we were given the opportunity to tour around the competition site and watch all the skilled trades people at work. There were many interactive booths that were pretty cool and fun to participate in. The welding simulator was my favourite! I tried the arc welding one, but they also had a mig at a different booth. It was definitely hard to get used to when you are already used to welding, as everything was so different. When you put the helmet on, and look around you actually see a construction site, and where the plastic T-joint is you actually see a metal one in front of you. The plastic gun type thing I’m holding is actually a stinger and a rod when you hold it in front of your helmet. It was so cool.

I convinced my fellow forum member and roommate to give it a shot as well. She did great!

Here is a video of what the computer display shows, through the special helmet wou have to wear. When you strike the arc the welding helmet shades and on the display you can either watch it like that or with daylight.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrIHX0dDejc&feature=channel

Another one of my favorite booths had an interactive “dress up” as the type of profession you wanted to be in. A couple of us girls had a blast in this booth.

We than had lunch at the site, and took a shuttle back to the rec centre where we participated in “What is a leader?” and “Real Goal-Setting” workshops with Stu Saunders. These were definitely fun and entertaining workshops, as you will be able to tell with the following photos.

This was a little blurb on giving directions; in this case, Stu was a nine-year-old who called his father at work to walk him through the process of making a peanut butter and jam sandwich.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmHwDjhxFrU&feature=channel

DAY 4: VIP LUNCH & CLOSING CEREMONIES

We got together in the morning for our last meeting as a group and prepared the final points of our report. We then hosted a VIP lunch for all directors and VIP guests. This is where we displayed any work and projects we did over the weekend and shared our thoughts about the forum and how beneficial the program was to us in many aspects.

We then attended a VIP gathering prior to the closing ceremonies where we got to meet the members of Team Canada from last year, as well as… MIKE HOLMES!

After all that excitement (and there was a lot of it) we made our way down for the awards and closing ceremonies.

Team Manitoba

Mike’s Speech

Winners – Team Canada

Following the closing ceremonies, we had a quick debriefing session and one last time together as the 2010 National Youth Leadership Forum.We then said our good byes and made our way back to our provincial or territorial group to return home.

This was a once in a lifetime experience and I am honoured to have been the one selected from our province to participate in this forum. I made many friends and experienced things I would never have been able to experience without this opportunity. Sara-Lynn Cleave was the organizer and director of the forum and she did a phenomenal job of doing just that! We all appreciated the effort she put into making the forum possible.

Similar to Unit 4, we came across electrical problems here as well. Once again, my role during this repair was to sweat off horse shoe connectors to allow a piece of the unit called a “pole” to be removed. There were several damaged poles, therefore, several horse shoe connectors that needed to be removed.

Some of the poles were located in such a way that it was nearly impossible to remove them. A crane was used to hoist them out. We had to physically spin the unit around to remove them. The best way of doing this is was actually having men walking on the top of the unit to rotate it.

This is a photo of the crane as it is just about to pull one of the poles out of the unit.

If you can recall from an earlier post, I’d never caught a fish until the first time I went ice fishing here in Grand Rapids. Fishing is just one of the many outdoor activities you can do here. I was able to go out on a boat this summer for the first time (lots of firsts for me if you have been following my blogs!) I had a wonderful time. J

At the beginning of the evening I wasn’t exactly fond of putting a night crawler on my hook, but come the end of the night I was learning how to fillet my own fish.

The knowledge and experiences I have gained whether on the job or on my own time in the evenings are some I’ll never forget.

I fabricated a mount for the overhead door equipment located in the power house. To do this, I torch cut the shape out of one-inch steel plate. This was a fairly simple job, basically I just had to clean up the edges with a grinder following the cut.