Building connections at ACE Training

A warm welcome

The evening began with the kind of welcome ROBIN guests have come to expect, with teas, biscuits and time to settle in and network before the tour got under way. Lisa Marie Perkins arranged for ACE to host, and the team greeted everyone and showed guests around both floors of the centre across the course of the evening.

A look at ACE Training’s work

ACE is a not-for-profit construction training centre based in Kidlington. The team talked guests through what they do, which covers apprenticeships and pre-apprenticeships in trades including bricklaying, site carpentry and joinery, taught in small groups. Alongside the trade skills, they deliver functional skills in maths and English, broken into smaller steps and tied to the work itself, so a maths session might cover the kind of calculations a bricklayer uses on site. Their support runs beyond the workshop too, from connecting learners with local employers to help with applications and interviews, with the aim of getting people into paid work at the end of their programme.

Sustainability runs through how the centre operates. Among their green initiatives are solar panels and free electric minibuses that bring learners to and from the centre, charged mainly by that solar power.

The tour took in the carpentry workshop, with its timber-framed model builds, and the bricklaying area, giving a sense of how the training runs day to day.

Conversations and connections

With a good mix of local organisations and community-minded people in the room, conversation flowed easily throughout, as it tends to at a ROBIN evening. Grant was also on site capturing video content for the network, and our thanks go to everyone who took a moment to share a few words on camera.

A sincere thank you to Lisa Marie Perkins and the team at ACE Training for hosting, leading the tour and making everyone so welcome. With significant construction planned across Oxfordshire in the coming years, the skills ACE helps develop are in real demand, and it was good to see that work up close.