Martin Biron has been awarded £6,000!

Development Award 2012

The College of North West London has been awarded £6,000 in recognition of their learning project which uses plumbing skills to enhance life.

The BPEC Charity has announced the college is to receive a Development Award at its first ever Life Awards ceremony.

The college was presented with the award for the creation of a Virtual Plumbing College online to support plumbing students, teachers and the wider general public in understanding the key principles and processes of the plumbing industry.

Over the past four years, many tens of thousands of people from all over the world have used the virtual online 3-D training environment.

“As an educator, over the past five years I have been driven with a passion to develop educational resources to encourage individuals to develop the skills needed to become competent and proficient plumbers,” said Martin Biron, head of school (construction) at the College of North West London.

The award will fund the online 3-D world reality site for a further two years.

It was one of four awards totalling almost £30,000 presented by the BPEC Charity – the charitable arm of BPEC, which is the leading training and certification provider to the building services engineering sector.

They were announced at an awards ceremony attended by 100 representatives of the plumbing industry at Pride Park Stadium, Derby, on October 24^th 2012. The awards, in memory of BPEC’s founding chairman Raymond J Brooks, were presented by the trustees of the BPEC Charity.

Other awards were presented to NG Bailey Engineering Academy, Leeds, for the design of a project that will deliver a safe water system to a health clinic in Cobue, Mozambique; Burnley College for a project to take apprentice plumbers to Uganda to work alongside a village community to build wells to provide safe, clean drinking water; and plumber John Booth, from Fareham, Hampshire, for his involvement in the Peace & Hope Trust’s charity work in Nicaragua.

BPEC chairman Frank Glover said: “BPEC is delighted to have presented four separate awards at our inaugural BPEC Charity Life Awards event. Each of the award finalists have shown how plumbing can make a difference to life, and we congratulate the College of North West London for being amongst this year’s recipients.”

Now the search has started for applicants for next year’s BPEC Charity Life Awards, with organisers urging those who work in the plumbing sector to submit their ideas.

“There are so many ways in which plumbing skills can enhance life,” said Frank Glover. “It may be through product invention, an innovative product or service, a charitable plumbing activity or project, raising the image of plumbing or a change in perspective. We hope that this year’s winners will provide inspiration to others who could receive the award in 2013.”

BPEC, which was established in 1992, is the leading provider of training and certification for the building services engineering sector, which covers the gas, oil, plumbing, electrotechnical, heating, ventilating, air conditioning and refrigeration industries.

The organisation’s training program ranges from technical training packs for domestic gas safety and water regulations to a selection of renewable energies manuals such as solar thermal hot water and heat pumps.

BPEC is dedicated to education and lifelong learning, and seeks to encourage individuals to undertake further training to continuously update their skills, both for personal development and to keep abreast of the industry’s technological advances.

Its charitable arm – The BPEC Charity – launched the Life Award in 2012 to reward and support those in the UK plumbing industry who use plumbing skills to enhance life.

To find out more about entering next year’s Life Awards visit https://bpec.org.uk/the-bpec-charity/