The moment things changed forever (Otherwise known as the closing ceremony)

August 27th 2019, a date I will never forget. It was on this day that the Worldskills Kazan 2019 Closing Ceremony took place in the Kazan Arena. After battling for four solid days of competition, 12 intense weeks of training over the summer and using everything I had learnt in life to date, it had […]

The Beginning of the End

With the actual competition complete, this signaled the beginning of the end of the Worldskills journey. A journey which I never wanted to end. It’s hard to believe that Team Ireland all started off as strangers and had only spent 6 days in total together before embarking out on this trip. These people became my […]

The Final Countdown

When I got to the end of C3, there was a decision to be made about our final day of competition; as the test project was not running to schedule a decision had to be made on how to end it. Turning up on C4 , there was so much uncertainty. The call was made […]

The Real Test – Competition Days C1-C4

While still on a high from the atmosphere from the opening ceremony, reality soon set back in with the realization that day 1 of competition was about to begin. Everything we had all been working towards for the last 12 weeks, or in fact our whole careers to date, was about to be tested. For […]

C-1 Opening Ceremony (Part 2)

C-1 was certainty a very busy day! As mentioned in C-1 (Part 1) post, we got the opportunity to visit a local school in Kazan as part of the One Country, One School (OCOS) and take part in a cultural exchange. When we returned to the competitor village, preparation began for the opening ceremony. Excitement […]

C-1 OSOC (Part 1)

C-1 = The day before competition began. This was probably the second best day of the whole trip. Another early start (as a non morning person, it was at this point that I really began to struggle to drag myself out of bed each morning!). To begin the day we were invited to a local […]

C-2 Familiarisation Day

After a long previous day, broken sleep (a false fire alarm at 23:45 in the middle of the night) and a very early breakfast call, we set off for another action packed day! While in Kazan we did not go by the actual date, days were instead referred to in relation to competition (C-2 = […]

The Adventure Begins

So unfortunately due to time constraints and other matters, I was unable to write the blog while I was actually away at competition, so the next series of posts will be like a catch up and a snapshot of the past! The morning of departure, I was pleasantly surprised to be met by all my […]

Winning Ireland Skills Live

If someone asked me in December 2018, how was I planning to spend Summer 2019, I probably would’ve said travelling and horse riding … I certainly wouldn’t have thought in my wildest dreams I would be completing an intense 12 weeks preparation training programme to travel to Russia to represent Ireland in the Worldskills competition. […]

Why Logistics?

The most favoured question upon meeting someone new and telling them your background is in Logistics is; “Why/How did you get into Logistics?” The answer 90% of the time for most people in the industry is “I fell into it”. In my experience, there is very few of us who purposely entered the industry. I […]