At the beginning of November, a select team of loggers from Ogres tehnikums (Jānis Kristers Ločs, Helvijs Šulga, Rūdolfs Mahts, Ints Lūsis, Tīna Marianna Ķikule, Dārta Dace Kravaine), led by team coach Armands Lapiņš and his assistant Matīss Mūrnieks, participated in the International Professional Skills Festival for the forestry industry, organised by the Polotsk Forestry College in the Republic of Belarus. The Polotsk Forestry College is an institution under the administration of the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Belarus, which offers training in forestry professions – forestry technician, forest ranger, and logger – available both after secondary school and through lifelong learning programmes.
The festival lasted three days, with the programme featuring chainsaw disciplines and a forestry relay race, as well as sports games – basketball and volleyball. The tasks for the logger competition disciplines are selected to mirror the daily working life of a professional logger using a chainsaw. Competitors race in tree felling, chainsaw chain changing, combined and precision bucking, and limbing. Participant performance is expressed as a total score, with points awarded for the precise execution of each task; the time taken to complete a task is also a deciding factor, and speed is sometimes the differentiator. In the rush for speed, participants often make errors, which judges must spot and penalise with deduction points. Penalty points are awarded for breaches of health and safety rules.
Teams from Belarus, Russia, and all Baltic states participated in the competition (10 teams in total). 36 participants performed tasks with a chainsaw; 70 participants took part in the forestry relay race, where they completed 10 different forestry-related tests.
The competition assesses the performance of boys, girls, and teams in chainsaw work separately, as well as team performance in the “Forestry Relay”.
Competition results are expressed in points; the three best results (the highest point totals) are awarded prizes, a procedure applied to all five chainsaw disciplines. The awards for each chainsaw discipline are “small gold, silver, and bronze” medals. In the overall competition ranking, the winners are determined as the three participants with the highest total points across all disciplines. Team performance is also evaluated, and a separate ranking is provided for the girls' competition.
The Ogres tehnikums team won prizes in the following disciplines:
Jānis Kristers Ločs – small gold – combined bucking, small silver – limbing, small bronze – chain changing, silver medal in the overall classification,
Helvijs Šulga – small gold – tree felling, small bronze – precision bucking,
Rūdolfs Mahts – small gold – precision bucking,
Ints Lūsis – small silver – tree felling,
Tīna Marianna Ķikule – silver medal in the overall girls' competition,
Dārta Dace Kravaine – recognition for individual participation in the forestry relay.
The results achieved are proof and justification for the resources invested in the Ogres tehnikums logging team. After this festival, when summarising the results and achievements in the competition disciplines, it can be concluded that behind every medal won by the Ogres tehnikums students lies three years of hard work. On this occasion, the participants were not carried by luck, but rather everyone had come to these competitions with well-prepared homework. Each team member completed the given tasks and met their own self-set goals. The team has grown and gained experience and knowledge, which are competitive for future mastery contests and competitions, as well as for daily work and training, increasing work safety and efficiency.
The next challenge for the team members will be in April 2020 at the “Rāmava” exhibition complex, where they will compete for the Ogres tehnikums Cup in the U24 category. To promote the team's growth and broaden the participants' experience, teams from Baltic Sea countries will be invited to these competitions. The support and interest provided by the Rāmava exhibition company have encouraged Ogres tehnikums to take the initiative to organise international competitions for the forestry industry in Latvia. Each subsequent logger competition organised in Rāmava will serve as a preparation stage for May 2021, when Ogres tehnikums will host the European Young Forestry Professionals competition. Participants from more than 18 European countries will compete in technical chainsaw disciplines and prove their knowledge by completing tasks on forestry and forest management.