Woodworking skills on display

UCOL tutor Rowan Dicks. PHOTO/SUPPLIED

The woodwork skills of local students will be on display later this month during a creative woodskills competition.

The competition, hosted by the middle districts branch of the NZ Farm Forestry Association, the furniture design and construction department of UCOL and the local branch of the technical teachers group, will be held in Palmerston North on October 19.

Organiser Rowan Dicks from UCOL said the competition provides an opportunity for secondary school students to display their considerable design and technical skills and gain recognition for their achievements.

"Wood working skills as a great asset for a country which is rich in wood, but poor in adding value to what is our third largest export category," Mr Dicks said.

"A high value furniture industry requires skilled workers, imaginative design and an associated wood culture. The farm foresters are particularly interested in seeing the imaginative use of the various decorative, non-radiata, timbers that they grow and have been supplying to some of the schools."

Mr Dicks said in the past students, with the guidance and support of their teachers, have produced some truly superb items of furniture and wood work.

Prizes will be presented at Palmerston North's Square Edge on the afternoon of October 19. The competition entries will then be on public display at Square Edge for a week.

"I guarantees that [people] will be impressed by the quality and beauty of the items," Mr Dicks said.