The Charles Bennington Achievement Award

It’s been a challenging year for us all at HG Wells in more ways than one.

We haven't had much time to release any development of the business or

promote any of our services which is something we really need to do fast,

but we certainly have the time to write this is very heart warming post that I’d

like to let you all know about.

As some of you are aware we lost a very special person at the start of this

year. Charles Bennington was our rising star, a young 17 year old

apprentice, in whom we saw some huge potential. HG Wells being a family

owed company, both Chris and Stuart (MD's) had known Charles since he

was born, his parents are very close friends of our family. Chris, Cassie,

Stuart and Jeanette have been supporting Charles parents since the day of

his accident and they made a promise that they would do everything they

could to help them along the most horrendous journey ever imaginable for a

parent.

One of the requests from Charles parents was that they would like an award

in his name. From the moment this was mentioned, HG did everything they

could to get this in place. With help from the fantastic tutors and staff at City

College Norwich, Eastern College and Charles parents donating a beautiful

trophy, we were able to announce at the annual apprenticeship awards, the

“Charles Bennington Achievement Award”.

This award is to aspire young people in Engineering, from full time college

students right the way through to apprentices. This award isn't just for the

best performance but also for someone who has really put the effort in,

maybe a student who has fought difficulties to commit to collage or possibly

suffered issues throughout their education in their Engineering course but

still remained committed to their course. We are very proud of Charles and

this is a token of our appreciation and to make sure that his name remains in

the thoughts of everyone involved in engineering for the future.

Charles had a huge passion for engineering, he took to the well services

side of the oil and gas industry like a duck to water, he surprised us every

day with his enthusiasm and knowledge, it was almost like talking to

someone who has been in the industry for years, not to forget Charles was

only 17!

Ever since day one of HG Wells we have seen that it pays dividends to have

young people come into our workshop and train them in our industry. We

have just enrolled two new apprentices and we aim to train these people into

great well services technicians through the in house training & competency

systems at HG Wells and their class room based learning at collage. We

have the drive and commitment to give these young people an aspiring

future providing them the opportunity to reach their true potential.

I’d like to hope that all of the local Oil & Gas companies in Norfolk see this

post and act on it, we cannot emphasise enough how advantageous it is to

have apprentices working in your work force. Unfortunately apprenticeships

are on the decline and we can foresee a huge loss in the future of skilled

people to perform the engineering tasks required in the Oil & Gas industry. It

goes without saying that it is a very small investment to gain something

much greater in the future. We are only a small business but we have given

the most commitment we can to the apprenticeship schemes in our area. We

have seen that there is a grey area between employers, the colleges and the

students and we have taken upon ourselves to try and assist the colleges

where possible to make it easier for employers to understand the

apprenticeship schemes. If you are in a position of recruitment and you think

would benefit from an apprentice then please make sure you approach your

local colleges, you never know what kind of young person will walk through

the door, who knows, you may just find someone with the same passion and

thirst for knowledge as Charles Bennington ;-D

If anyone local needs some advice on the apprenticeship schemes that are

out there at the moment please don't hesitate to contact us

at [email protected] and we will guide you in the right direction.

I’d also like to say that the Charles Bennington Award is funded by the kind

people who donated to the Go fund me page, this page is still open to

donations, so if this story is close to your heart then please donate

something because it will be going straight into a pot to reward committed

engineering students, who aren't just in the Oil and Gas industry but all

aspects of engineering. These are not the people who read off a clip board

and tell you how to do it, these are the people who actually DO IT!