Skills West Midlands

Skills West Midlands
Ricoh Arena, Coventry
18, 19 March 2009

Improve your performance

At Skills West Midlands, the region’s biggest careers event, happening on 18 and 19 March 2009 at the Ricoh Arena in Coventry, young people from across the West Midlands will have an opportunity to find out more about careers and skills. But this is a careers event with a difference; you can have fun as you find out about all the options available.

There will be over 50 organisations there delivering lots of interactive features, from building a brick wall to completing a human jigsaw, bringing the world of work to life. Making decisions is never easy but it is easier to find your direction when you can try out new skills. Companies and educational organisations will be at Skills West Midlands hoping to attract their future workforce and student talent by sharing with visitors the tricks of the trade and the best routes to success.
As well as lots of exciting have a go activities visitors can enjoy watching stage performances from Making it happen with Make Your Mark and their idea generation event, in the style of Dragon’s Den where young people who have inspirational ideas for a product or service can pitch to a panel of successful entrepreneurs, gain feedback and win prizes.
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VT Training will be bringing a team of West Midlands sports assessors who will be performing a boxercise and step presentation themed to music. It will demonstrate the skills that students can learn on their fitness programmes, in order to be competent to coach/teach exercise based sessions in the leisure environment. University College Birmingham will also be stepping up the pace with their travel and tourism students demonstrating their entertainment skills by performing a dance routine and visitors will have the opportunity to participate and learn some dance moves.
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Fashion students from City College Birmingham will be strutting their funky stuff and displaying their creative talents on the catwalk including collections of students work from all levels. North Warwickshire & Hinckley College will be thrilling visitors with a variety of performance acts from the music, dance and drama departments and a demonstration of top make up artistry including old age and casualty make up.
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As well as the open stage area exhibitors will be running interactive features throughout the two open days and evening opening. All activities happening at Skills West Midlands are free and open to all, so you can enjoy trying beauty treatments, climbing walls, and winning prizes.
icould are bringing their green pods and you can find out what careers you could grow into, with hundreds of careers films from real people. icould are giving away tickets to their launch gig with Wiley with support from The Standardists on Thursday 18 March at FiftyFour, Coventry University Student Union. At the Zenos IT Academy stand you will have the opportunity to build your own pc, find where the graphics card fits on the motherboard, select the right RAM and turn the components into a computer.
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City College Birmingham’s stand will demonstrate practical courses and you can enjoy treatments including nail art, henna and threading. Find out more about healthy eating making smoothies with their health and social care team. Make T-shirts with the fashion team or take the driving seat in a bright yellow kit car.
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We’ve also got the Army, the Royal Navy and the Royal Marines all under one roof. If you visit their stands you can have the ride of your life around Poole Harbour in a super-speed Royal Navy Super X simulator. Realistic and thrilling the simulator is just like the real deal but without getting wet. Then you can keep your adrenalin pumping by scaling the Army climbing wall.
Andrew Coates from organisers Prospects Events said:
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“Skills West Midlands is designed to be interactive and fun, lively and busy, dramatic and exciting.. We hope it will encourage visitors to try new things and talk to people from many different organisations.
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“Skills West Midlands is such a dynamic and valuable experience for young people. Today’s downturn will not last for ever, young people are the future workforce and Skills West Midlands is their chance to find out more about the career and training options available and to find out about careers they might never have considered.”
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A visit to Skills West Midlands will be an experience that could change the future, for students and for the region, so don’t miss out and come along. Parents, carers, family and teachers want to have fun too, so you can visit anytime Wednesday or Thursday between 9.30am and 3pm or come along to the special evening opening on Wednesday from 5pm to 7pm.
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Discover the directions available - don't delay and visit www.skillswestmidlands.co.uk and book your places today.