UK Skills, who select the British team of young craftspeople to attend the two-yearly World Skills contest in which UK masonry has competed so well against the rest of the world for many years, are now accepting nominations for the 2011 World Skills contest being held at ExCeL London, where the Natural Stone Show is held every other year. Deadline for entries is 9 April. More details on the website (address below).

The stonemasonry apprentices short listed for this year’s World Skills contest in Calgary, Canada, are Nathan Smith (19) who works for Stone Firms on Portland, Oliver Clack (20) from CWO in Chichester, and Marc Pate (21) from Wells Cathedral Stonemasons in Cheddar.

They will now be training hard ready to compete with each other in June for the one stonemasonry place in the 30-strong Team UK flying off to Canada in September.