Agenda item

To receive a presentation from Peter Nyman on the work of the Camberley Job Club

Peter Nyman, Treasurer, gave a presentation in respect of the work of the Camberley Job Club.  The presentation included an overview of the organisation, a summary of the services it provided and potential areas for development.

The Job Club, originally set up in 2012, had predominantly been funded by the Frimley Fuel Allotment Society.  In April 2016, a grant of £5,000 had been received from Surrey Heath Borough Council which had been used to employ a part time administrator to strengthen and support the work of the small voluntary committee who ran the Job Club.

The Job Club met for two hours twice a week when a team of 12 volunteers, many volunteering for the first time, provided service users with support to help them find employment.  In addition to providing advice and guidance on CVs and interview preparation volunteers also helped people to access training, become smarter with their job searches and could if necessary refer people to other more specialised services for example debt advice services and the Citizen’s Advice Bureau.  The Job Club encouraged its service users to undertake voluntary work and helped them to understand that the transferable skills acquired through voluntary work were positive attributes that should be included on CVs.  External speakers were invited to attend sessions to talk on a range of subjects and the Committee was looking to expand this aspect of the service.  In May 2016, the Job Club had hosted a successful employment conference and work had started on a similar event for May 2017.  Employers were encouraged to attend sessions to talk to service users about the opportunities available and the Job Club were working with Council officers to expand this offer further.

Although Surrey Heath had low unemployment levels it was recognised that the labour market was volatile and the services offered by the Job Club provided supplemental support to service users in addition to the help that was available from Job Centre Plus.  In addition to assisting those people looking for work the Job Club worked with the long term unemployed, those wanting to return to work after a significant break and people who found themselves out of work after a significant period of time in one role by helping them to build up their resilience, self-respect and self-confidence. 

The Job Club was looking to expand its offer and had identified social care as a growth area in the region.  Following work with Age UK and the Alzheimer’s Society, a funding bid had been submitted to enable the development of an Introduction to Social Care Course.  The possibility of spending time operating from the Sure Start Centre and possibly occupying a vacant space in the Mall on one day were also being explored.

The Job Club had a Twitter account and a Facebook page and it was hoped that with the new Administrator in post these would be more fully exploited. 

The Job Club did not currently provide training on using Linked In as a job seeking tool and Councillor Adams offered to help the Job Club with setting this up.

The possibility of acquiring charitable status had been explored however it was felt that the organisation was too small to benefit from this at the current time and the matter would be revisited at a later date.

It was agreed that a suggestion to put an article in Heathscene about the Job Club would be followed up.

The Committee thanked Peter Nyman for his informative update.