Apprentice Bricklayers from Hull College visit Crest for an open day event

10 Mar 2023

Crest’s sales director Paul Lawson explains brick dimensions and tolerances to the students.

Crest has been working in conjunction with Hull College, supplying clay-facing bricks for the students to work with on their apprenticeship courses. The Crest team arranged an open day aimed to provide the students with an insight into the industry and an understanding of the products we supply.

The event was opened by Crest’s Managing Director Stuart King who welcomed the students to Crest, and discussed his own career journey within the industry, this was followed with a presentation by Crest’s Marketing Manager Neil Mace who talked them through a history of Crest, an overview of the products Crest supplies, and an insight into our European manufacturing operation. He also discussed the various house-building projects that Crest is involved in across the region. 

After the opening presentation, the 12 students were divided into 3 groups, and further presentations were provided by Sales Director Paul Lawson, Area Sales Manager Tony Askew and Marketing Manager Neil Mace. 

Paul Lawson discussed with the student's site practice, troubleshooting, dimensions and tolerances, Tony Askew introduced the students to the Crest range and gave them an understanding of various special products including Crests Linea Long Format bricks, Neil Mace gave a tour of the Crest warehouse, and provided information on the shrink wrap process, packing procedures and brick sample operation. 

The students visited the Crest showroom which gave them the opportunity to look at the many brick displays within the showroom, the brick displays showed the students the various mortar colours and how they can affect the facing brick appearance.  

Lunch was provided and after lunch, the students and tutors had the opportunity to discuss the day's events with the Crest team and ask any questions that they had. One of the students had phone images that he had taken of an outbuilding within his garden and asked the Crest team for advice on matching it with a brick from the Crest range. 

Course tutor Shaun Stephens thanked everyone involved in the day for the warm welcome received by the Crest team and for sharing the information provided and said: “We feel the day was a great success for both the tutors and apprentices and everyone took something away with them and enjoyed the experience”. Shaun extended an invitation to the Crest staff to visit the College and offered a free wall within the College for Crest's advertising purposes. 

After the day's events feed back was received by course tutor Shaun Stephens, who had asked the students for their thoughts on the visit and what they had learnt from the experience.  The event received a positive review and some of the comments received from the students are listed below:

• Gained a good understanding on how bricks are made
• I found it interesting and would of liked the activities to go on longer
• Learnt a lot about Crest and how we depend on each other
• Learnt how bricks are made and the different types
• Good information on Crest and brick types
• Fun and informative
• Learnt how different components are used to make bricks
• Different kind of experience to college enjoyed learning how bricks are made
• Learnt a lot about the manufacturing process and how to test brick tolerances
• Really helpful to see what happens to bricks before they get on-site

The Crest team are delighted that the day was a success and feels privileged to be helping in shaping the industry's future brick-laying generations. Crest looks forward to continuing their working partnership with the College.