Last year we were lucky enough to not only enter into the micro business category but to go on and win it and received a cheque to help with all the training costs to allow us to move into the renewable energy market! 

This year we knew a lot of the entrants to the competition and the winners of both categories, AMB Insurance and Appointments personnel are both members of the same networking group ‘Business for Breakfast‘ that we are members of  so we were very pleased to see them win and hope they have a fantastic year the same as we have!

It gave us the opportunity to see the college and its facilities as we have not been before.

There are no training facilities for Roofing here in Stoke on Trent, Birmingham is the closest and Adam travels there by train every day. he has been for four three week blocks this year and next year he will do three three week blocks, he will then have gained his NVQ level 2 in roof tiling and slating.

We arrived to find the college had installed a Marquee over the training scaffold which looked very impressive indeed! The attendance is good and the atmosphere is great!

The guest speaker is former cricket legend Geoff Miller  and he gave a great introduction, somehow relating a construction college to cricket! I was slightly ‘stumped’ with all the cricket terms to be honest, its not something Im familiar with!

Adam has been nominated for ‘Apprentice of the year award’ along with two other lads in his year.

When the ceremony began each apprentice was called up to receive an award of £100 each for being nominated which we thought was brilliant!

And then the winners of each group was announced and we were thrilled when  Adam was named as the winner of his group!

Adams Mum cried and must admit to a little tear in our eyes too although Adam looked as though he would rather be anywhere at that moment than on his way back up onto the stage to collect a further £100 and also a free course for our company for a ‘Site supervisor’

Adam, Apprentice of the Year!!!

We are a small roofing company based in Newcastle under Lyme; it’s not something you expect!

If you’re not familiar with the programme its ‘celebrity’ is Nick Knowles and he travels around the country helping people with their DIY problems or disasters.

The programme had arranged to help a local family from Meir that had purchased a property at auction in order to renovate but ill health had struck and the lack of money had prevented him from continuing

We agreed to take part, in fact we were rather excited to think we might be on TV if truth be known!

The actual work was carried out in January 2011.

We  fitted a skylight that one of our suppliers, Capital Roofing centre generously donated, replaced some lead flashing, rebedded a few ridge tiles back onto the roof and replaced a few missing tiles for them

Our team of lads came away from the project amazed at the amount of contractors on site, it was absolutely manic!

But the actual handover of the project back to the Bright family took place a few weeks later and Mick and a few of the team went along to see the finished results and to take part in a bit more filming, turned out to be a very emotional day, not many dry eyes when the family came out to personally thank them, even the cameraman was in tears!

They all had to walk along the street with Nick Knowles appearing amongst them, it’s the opening shot on the programme if you have seen it!

Mick overheard the production team commenting how many people had offered to help or donate materials; they had been inundated with offers and could not believe the generosity of the people of Stoke on Trent

The programme was aired on TV in April 2011, I watched it whilst ‘tweeting’ and the response was brilliant, everyone enjoyed the programme and got a bit emotional at the end!

We were proud to be a part of it even though we received no publicity from the programme in the end, we were proud of Stoke on Trent and its generous community!