Rasheed Vaughan
His week’s work experience at Newcastle United’s training ground at Chester-le-Street, County Durham, convinced him of his calling. “If this style of work wasn’t for me, I’d have known after that week,” he recalls.
“After I left Tudhoe Grange School, Spennymoor, I went to Ferryhill Town Council on a Youth Opportunities Scheme,” says the 23-year-old in a broad North-east accent that betrays his Hartlepool origins.
Although a small local authority,Ferryhill has an enviable reputation as a provider of educational and career opportunities for its ground staff, and Rasheed was no exception to the rule - gaining NVQ Levels 1 and 2 in Horticulture at East Durham and Houghall Community College with a specialism in sportsturf.
“I wrote lots of letters asking for work placements before Houghall found me a position at Ferryhill,” Rasheed continues, “so in October 2001, I began my Level 1 modern apprenticeship.”
Gaining that in July 2002, Rasheed says: “I took the sportsturf option as the council runs lots of cricket, bowls and football facilities, and it seemed the most appropriate route.”
Under Level 2, he learnt how to maintain healthy sportsturf and to prepare and present pitches for play, including spiking and marking out, top-dressing and using and maintaining turf machinery, as well as establishing outdoor bedding plants and shrubs.
Health and safety issues were also covered, as were development of personal performance parameters and establishing and maintaining working relationships.
The current turmoil surrounding EU pesticides is familiar territory for Rasheed, as part of his Level 2 included sitting a pesticides application theory and practice.In August 2004, having achieved his NVQ Level 2 Modern Apprenticeship in Amenity Horticulture, Rasheed quickly moved on to gaining an NPTC certificate in the safe use of pesticides to consolidate the work he was undertaking at Ferryhill, which included spraying bedding areas.
Keen for Rasheed to progress, his then line manager, David Hindmarch, put him in for his NVQ Level 3 in Horticulture with the sportsturf option in the September, again at Houghall College on day release. By May 2006 that qualification was under his belt, too.“Rasheed is one of the keenest workers you could possibly wish to come across,” says Hindmarch. “He has such a willingness to get through his qualifications. He found Levels 2 and 3 quite hard and put in extra work to complete them successfully, but that’s to his credit. He’s a good lad. Nobody has a bad word to say about him and he has what it takes to move into management.”
Ability, effort and personal approachability were just some of the attributes that helped Rasheed lift Houghall’s work-based learning Student of the Year award.
Ferryhill then took him on full-time as a career groundsman undertaking tasks as varied as planting out, hard landscaping in amenity areas and parks until April 2007, when Rasheed’s career took another twist.“I felt I had progressed as far as I could at Ferryhill so I applied to Sedgefield Borough Council, a far larger authority which could offer me fresh challenges.”
The council had earlier moved its parks into the Neighbourhoods Services department, so his daily duties as a Street Team Operative also include weed control, preparing and planting up beds, grass cutting and strimming, arboricultural work, to which he admits to having a special interest.
“I’d like to do more work with trees. I’ve enjoyed outdoors work from an early age and I suppose I always wanted to be a gardener. Forestry work appeals to me and Sedgefield has quite a few trees.” To that end he once more decided to gain further qualifications, receiving an NPTC in chainsaw work last summer. “I like all the jobs I do and am always seeking variety.”His willingness to undertake academic work also includes completing a number of IOG courses. A full member after joining in 2003, Rasheed finds plenty to interest him among the IOG’s extensive training and education programmes.
“There is a wide choice,” he says. “I completed the Level 1, 2 and 3 football, 1 and 2 bowls and 1, 2 and 3 cricket courses and enjoyed using the IOG lending library and visiting the website’s problem/solution-finder sections.“It’s important for me to keep up to date with what’s happening in bedding and trees, so I find the IOG very useful in this respect.”
Preparing cricket pitches was one of Rasheed’s best skills, according to David Hindmarch, who is sanguine about the departure of one of his star apprentices.“In fact, Rasheed was not the only Student of the Year for us: we won it two years running but Rasheed was the first, followed by Andrew Shaw, who also moved to Sedgefield. “It’s a great honour for the council and offers strong evidence of the career structure that we have in place here.” Rasheed’s current boss, acting Street Scene manager Jimmy Bennett, is similarly praiseworthy of this aspiring gardener’s work ethic and ability. “He’s well worth investing in and is always wanting to learn and push himself forward, asking to go on courses and seeing what’s available for him. He’s been through his Employment and Development Programme and there are a number of things he wants to achieve.”
