In article ,
Jonni writes:
Never done any plastering before but I am thinking of attending one of
the courses at www.goldtrowel.org

I don't pretend I'll instantly become an expert plasterer, and I know
practice makes perfect and all that but does anyone here have any
experience of this crew?

I did a 2-day course at the Aldershot Building Centre (?IIRC),
part of Farnborough College of Technology. It was brilliant.
All 16 of us were plastering better than the 2 plasterers I
had hired a few months before. I've done loads since too.
The course covered plastering and rendering, and if you
were interested in special finishes such as pebbledash, you
could do that too. The second half day covered patch/repair
techniques for things like filling in a chase, repairing a
lath and plaster ceiling, etc. The course was quite flexible
and could be adapted to any particular things people wanted
to cover.

Aldershot Building Centre did a 2 day course (occasionally
it ran over a weekend, but mostly during the week), a 5 day
course, and the full C&G course. They had a waiting list of
a year, but I got in sooner by saying I could take a place
at a day's notice. I believe the building training has moved
to another site now, so arrangements may be different. I also
suspect they may have lost their trainer, as the same chap
did the bricklaying course, and I've been on their list for
this for 6 months and they haven't even got any dates
scheduled yet.

--
Andrew Gabriel