Following the trip to Cologne the Council hosts its annual Awards Evening, at which one of the nominees is awarded the R. W. Lofthouse trophy and the title of the Apprentice of the Year. In 2009 the deserving winner was Kristopher Hesketh of W. Bibby Ltd. Kristopher trained with the NWTC for four years and has now completed his apprenticeship. He attended the Council one day per week, spending the remainder of the week working at W. Bibby gaining valuable experience such as turning, milling and fitting.

 

Since completing his training and being awarded the Apprentice of the Year Award, Kristopher has continued his employment with W. Bibby and now completes more advanced work operating CNC machines. He intends to take a break from training for now, but in the future will look into completing an HNC with the hope of gaining a promotion and further developing his skills. He said “Being apprentice of the year is a great achievement for myself and for W. Bibby Ltd and has made my parents very proud. Anyone thinking of doing an apprenticeship should go for it and work as hard as they can.”

 

Dick Jellicoe, Production Director at W.Bibby said “The Company benefit from employing apprentices because they are trained by ourselves and learn things the way we do it.” W. Bibby Ltd has been in the engineering industry since 1948 and employs twenty five members of staff of whom five are apprentices. They usually hire two apprentices per year and have trained twenty eight apprentices with the North West Training Council over the past fifteen years. They supply both the national and export market with prototype machines for industries including the medical, pharmaceutical and cable making industries and paper mills. W. Bibby Ltd endeavour to support their local community, and charities including the British Legion and Claire House have benefited. They have also supported a local church on which they carried out work free of charge. 

 

When asked about his relationship with the NWTC Dick said “We only use the North West Training Council to train our apprentices because of the good relationship that we have with them.”