Conference Reports

Over 580 individuals gathered from all across the country in beautiful St. John’s, NL for the CAF-FCA 2010 Conference, Apprenticeship: The Framework for Canada’s Renewable Resource.

Everyone received a warm St. John’s welcome and toe tapping music was provided by a group of young Irish musicians on Opening Night.

Ann Crafting The Bags!: Everyone loved the Conference bags featuring the krooked houses and I thought you might like to meet the woman who made every single one of them by hand for you. This is Ann Breen, St. John’s resident and local Craftsperson and Conference Bag Maker. Every bag is unique! No two are alike! Did you notice that Ann also individually signed each of her works of art? May you enjoy using them for years to come!

A popular new element was added this year with the Women in Trades Dialogue. Five cracker barrel presentations took place followed by a facilitated session with all participants actively engaged.

Valerie Overend, WinSETT Centre, took part as a presenter and participant. She described the session with enthusiasm saying, “Participants were actively engaged in proposing concrete actions that could be implemented in both long and short-term initiatives, encouraging cooperation of employers and training providers.

 

The issue of women in trades moved from a “women’s issue” to an HR issue. The attitude of resistance to women as a viable source of talent has shifted to one of promotion of women as a solution to a labour shortage. It seemed apparent that supply and demand forces came together in a spirit of cooperation.”

Valerie went on to say, “CAF-FCA took a leadership role in holding this forum and expressed further commitment in their plan to collate and share the information with the apprenticeship community in order to develop a plan of action to address areas where each could have an influence. Many who have been involved in introducing women to trades left in high spirits after the WiT Dialogue.”

Thank you for being part of the 2010 Conference and CAF-FCA’s 10^th year anniversary! We are glad you came and hope you enjoyed it.

We recently sent seven very important questions to all Conference participants that we hope you were able to take a few minutes out of your busy schedule to complete in our online conference survey. This is very different from the evaluation survey that went out post-conference and will prove valuable to future planning for CAF-FCA as we begin our next 10 years. Your opinion will help guide us! If you haven’t already done so, please take a few moments to complete the online conference survey now. Thank you!

If you missed Issue #2 of the Canadian Apprenticeship Journal – Journal canadien de l’apprentissage (CAJ-JCA), it can be viewed online at www.caj-jca.ca

Please click here to view and access session presentations

Please click here to view a selection of Photos.