WorldSkills Wellington Regional Competition - Sunday 16 May 2010
On Sunday 16 May 2010, HITO held the first of four regional WorldSkills Competitions at Cathy Davys salon in Wellington.
The competition started early in the morning with the 9 nervous competitors setting up for a chance to show their skills. Those taking part were:
- Emily Schipper
- Deniece Walters
- Mary-Ellen Orchard
- Marian Gorges
- Lei Lei Sun
- Gwen Cotton
- Olivia MacDonald
- Martin Cullen
- Kelila-Jade Love
The competition challenged contestants to create distinct hairstyles on mannequin heads, with a focus on creativity and colour work. The looks were created over an exhaustive 8 hour day, and the participants were glad when they could finally put down their scissors.
Emily Schipper of Hair Technique in Wanganui and Deniece Walters of The Hair Studio in Taihape took out first equal against 9 competitors from throughout the lower North Island.
Both contestants only began training for the competition 4 weeks ago, but found it to be a fantastic chance to expand their skill sets and challenge themselves. “It has been really enjoyable working towards the competition,” says Emily (20). “But it has also been intense and complex as it is so different to the work we do in the salon day to day.”
Deniece (21) agrees. “It was just so good to see our hard work paying off. We’ve both been really critical of our own work during training, but we’ve got the results to prove it was worth it.”
Emily and Deniece will now travel to Christchurch in September to compete at the National WorldSkills Final, from which a representative will be chosen for the Worldskills Competition in London in 2011.
Deniece Walters (left) and Emily Schipper (right)