This week saw the annual MTI (Manufacturing Technology and Innovation) event, organised by the TDA and held at the Riviera International Conference Centre.
This year we put out an invitation to some of our partner organisations who send us engineering based students and are delighted to have been able to welcome Tina Butterbrodt from Bildungs Werkstatt Chemnitz gGmbH. She arrived on Wednesday evening and enjoyed a two night stay at The Grand on Torquay sea front. A lovely 'English' hotel (according to Tina) and very convenient for the RICC. Pretty good breakfast too!
As soon as we arrived at the event we bumped into Torbay mayor, Gordon Oliver, who welcomed Tina and spoke for a while about the Torbay twinning with Hamelin and the great relationship we have with many organisations in Germany. We also had a very interesting conversation with Stephen Criddle - Principal of South Devon College. I think a proper visit to the college will be in order for Tina's next visit to Torbay!
We spent a few hours at the event and had the opportunity to speak with many of the High Tech companies in this area that have (and will continue to) host our/her students - with some excellent experiences and stories to tell - it was a very enjoyable time. A very interesting presentation from Spirent and some inspiring young people demonstrating their technical skills! Before we continued our day Tina asked about the differences between the German and UK Apprenticeship system - with particular reference to Engineering. A very big 'thank you' to Anthony Sutton from South Devon College who spent some valuable time explaining the current system and how we train our young people - excellent!
A visit to our offices to introduce Tina to the TTPL team and then...LUNCH! We (Nadine and I) took Tina to the new Visto Lounge, a really great demonstration of how the bay is developing - excellent food and a lovely location.
Then on to have a tour of Torbay, as it was Tina's first visit to this area we felt it was important to show how much there is here, so in spite of the weather we drove around the area pointing out the many highlights of Torbay - ending at South Devon College, where I was told that "we have nothing like this in Germany" - high praise indeed for our local college! We rounded off the day with our weekly student meeting, this week at the AMF Bowling on Torwood Street - 113 students all having an amazing time in a European all comers challenge - so good to see them all having fun and also an opportunity for Tina to meet up with one of her students currently here with us and many of the others from across Europe. All in all a very good day and I know that Tina enjoyed her brief time here in Torbay.
