A Woodbridge boatbuilding apprentice has this year claimed the top prize at Lowestoft College’s annual awards.
Tim Smith, 27, an apprentice with Stem to Stern Heritage Training, was announced as both the Student Achiever of the Year and Apprentice of the Year Award at Lowestoft College’s annual awards ceremony held at the Zest Rooms at Potters Leisure Resort in Hopton.
Each year, students are nominated for the awards by college staff and Tim was one of 16 shortlisted to receive recognition and to be put forward for the Student Achiever of the Year Award.
Tim, who moved to Suffolk in 2009 to join Lowestoft College’s Boatbuilding course. During the course he became a volunteer with Stem to Stern Heritage project which was formed to help keep some of the shipwright/boatbuilding skills alive which are used on historic and traditional wooden sailing vessels and train young people in those techniques. He made a big impression on the Stem to Stern team and was offered an apprenticeship after they saw how dedicated and talented he was in his chosen field.
Tim was chosen as the winner of the Student Achiever of the Year Award by Lowestoft College principal Simon Summers and Max Bennett, editor of The Journal, which sponsors the top prize.
Simon Summers, principal of Lowestoft College, said: “All of our award winners have inspirational stories of their time at college and should be proud of their success. Tim is a worthy winner of the Student Achiever of the Year Award as he has shown real dedication, determination and a talent for the boatbuilding industry even when times have been challenging.”
Tim is the second boatbuilding student from the College to win the top award and follows in the footsteps of James Dennis, who won the first ever Student Achiever Award when it was introduced in 2002.
Tim is set to complete his apprenticeship this summer and will continue to working for Stem to Stern but they are always interested in finding new projects for Tim to work on.
