6 Month Presentations.....

Post by Apprentice Community Safety Advisor William Hartley:

Earlier this week, the apprentices had the opportunity to impress our team leaders and managers by deliver a presentation to highlight the skills that we have been learning in the first six months that we have been part of the organisation.

Admittedly, it was extremely nerveracking. I don’t know how, but being faced with 20 people eagerly awaiting hearing what you have been working on seems a lot more terrifying than standing in front of a school with a few hundred students to deliver a safety message.

The day started off with Area Manager Geoff Harris, Head of Protection, introducing himself and explaining that he was extremely keen on seeing what we had been up to, and how we had coped with it so far. He left these thoughts,

“Our 12 Community Safety Advisor apprentices have been with us for 6 months now. I had the pleasure of attending their presentation event last Monday and seeing the work that they’ve been involved in since they joined us. It was great to see how they had all developed in knowledge, experience and confidence with many of them already suggesting different ways of doing things and delivering work on their own. Their enthusiasm was clear and infectious and the energy that they bring to GMFRS is fantastic. Given what I’ve seen I have no doubt that they will go on to achieve much more in the future and their experiences will help us to shape the way that the Service supports young people in the future”.

The day went extremely well and each apprentice was able to deliver fantastic presentation highlighting the support they have received whilst building their skills with the community safety advisors they work with on each borough. We spoke about the apprentices delivering Home Safety Checks to the public, events that they had set up and co-ordinated by themselves and also the Brathay Challenge which they are involved in at the moment.

Clearly this is something we are going to be asked to do again. After the success of the presentations, we as a team feel a lot more confident about standing up in front of the 100-plus strong audience next week at our apprenticeship conference.  The conference has been organised to highlight the benefit of apprentices within the organisation to other fire and rescue services from across the country and now we have shown what we are capable of, I'm looking forward to showing a much wider audience.