Before we know it Christmas will be upon us – a scary thought, I know! This edition is one of the last for 2013 with just one more issue of Newsline to be distributed before the end of the year. Keep an eye out for our Christmas issue!

I have just returned from a wonderful five week holiday in Europe where I spent my time enjoying the Netherlands, the magnificent scenery of the Rhine and Moselle rivers and the history and architecture of Germany and France. The Bavarian area of Germany is something else! Hope you enjoy the few photos (of the more than 1200 that I took!) that have been included in this issue.

The team here did a magnificent job of keeping everything in perfect running order while I was away and I thank each and every team member for their contribution. Plans are underway for our Management Team meeting to be held mid-November – this meeting will concentrate on our plans and targets for 2014 and beyond. Our internal audit will also occur early in November.

On Linda Chalwell’s last day here at Progressive Training (WA) Pty Ltd as our Client Services Officer, she ordered a chocolate cake covered with Maltesers as she loves cake!
It is with sadness that we have had to say goodbye to one of our team members and friend, as she started back in February of 2012 as an Administration Trainee. As part of her Traineeship, Linda completed her Certificate III in Business. It was most likely her lovely voice you would have heard on the phone when you called us.

Thursday 12th September 2013, marked an exciting day for both Progressive Training and Glass Co, as a celebration took place to congratulate Craig Phillips, Adam Pollard and Steele West on completion of their apprenticeships. During the celebration, Craig, Steele and Adam were presented with their Certificates to mark the successful completion of their training. This is the second group of apprentices to complete all training in Geraldton.

Over that past four months I’ve been working on a number of projects at Port Hedland.
The majority of the projects are focused in the electrical technical training area in meeting BHP Billiton’s requirements under the Mines Safety & Inspection Act.
These include:
• HV Switching Operator Levels 1, 2 & 3.
• Substation Safety & Arc Flash
• Statutory requirements for Electrical Supervisors
• Electrical Welding
• Electrical Induction
• Electrical Safety Observer
• Low Voltage Safety Procedures

As there are package and version changes occurring regularly, the Scope and Training Operations Department is constantly kept busy checking, updating and modifying. It will always be a continuous circle of improvement.

Towards the end of this year and early in the New Year, it is likely there will be some big changes to some of the packages we have on Scope. Just three of these packages that will be affected are:
• TAE40110 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment
• RII09 Resource & Infrastructure, and
• BSB07 Business

These changes will be quite significant and will require a great deal of time, energy and patience to implement. So, be aware, they are coming!

The last few months for Josh have included lots of Workforce Development Centre (WDC) workshops, updates to our website, continual resource development, Excel training and the unique opportunity of getting to ride a ship into port.

In August Geoff headed off to Christmas Island to conduct an audit for the Department of Training and Workforce Development.

Christmas Island is a natural wonder - a remote tropical island famous for its unique red crabs, robber crabs and spectacular bird life. It is an Australian Territory which lies way out in the Indian Ocean 2,600 kilometers northwest of Perth and 500 kilometers south of Indonesia's capital Jakarta.

Lyn and I have just returned from our third visit to Italy. There is something special about this country that we both love. Maybe back in history a friendly Roman took a liking to a lovely welsh lass and that's where the love of Italy started for the Davies, who knows.

Yet again Lyn turned her hand to travel consultancy and turned out a fantastic holiday for us both.

We began the Italian leg of the holiday in Turin. Arrived at around 11:00pm then up and off at 7:00am the next morning (what jet lag?). Here we took in a number of cathedrals, Egyptian museum (best outside of Cairo), Mole Antonelliana and of course the Shroud of Turin (only the copy).