Chris Skidmore launches Kingswood Jobs Club

Chris Skidmore has launched the Kingswood Jobs Club, which will take place in Kingswood every Wednesday afternoon. Chris, a local resident in the area, decided to launch the Jobs Club to help local residents who are looking for a job by creating a community organisation run by the Kingswood community for the Kingswood community. Chris sees this as vitally important to fight Gordon Brown's recession.

After holding the first meeting of the Jobs Club, Chris said:

"I've just held the first meeting of the Kingswood Jobs Club this afternoon. I decided to set up the club after speaking to local residents about their frustrations that, despite being in the grip of a recession, the government doesn't seem to be doing anything to help local people, on the ground, now. At the same time, people are losing their jobs, their livelihoods. In my constituency, Kingswood, unemployment is up from 850 to 1250- and that's between June and November alone, before the large Woolworths on Kingswood High Street closed its doors for the last time.

Meeting to people at the club, the reality of Gordon Brown's recession and its devasting impact on local life was clear to see. This was the mission for the Jobs Club- to provide the community support and local help that people looking for a job deserve. Each week the Club has invited someone from a local business to come along and speak, while in the second part of the session, we would help people create their own CVs and give interview experience that will make them stand out and shine when applying for jobs. This week Rick Pope from S & B Automotive Academy, a local not for profit company specialising in training apprenticeships, came along and gave an excellent talk on how to boost your CV, tailoring it for the specific job you want. Then we all sat down and worked through each person's CV, finding out what their 'selling points' were.

What was striking was that only by speaking to people face to face the wide range of talent and expertise they had, but had often overlooked or thought might not be relevant. Only by sharing their experience with others in the group did the Jobs Club help open their eyes to their own potential.

By the end of the session, those who had turned up were helping each other by passing on their own separate knowledge and expertise. Everyone who attended was keen to come back next week, and hopefully the Jobs Club will only grow and grow. Already I have had people volunteer to help, and in other areas of the constituency there are community groups keen to work with me, putting on these workshops, particularly for young people not in education, employment or training, who have sadly risen under Labour.

We're now planning to hold a meeting of the Kingswood Jobs Club at the same time, same place every week. What we can do is make sure that their CV stands out from the rest of the pile, provide critical advice and support, and help with interview practice, put people in contact with local businesses. We're here for the local community in Kingswood, standing up for hardworking local residents who want to get back into work. And we're here to be a human face, demonstrating that communities can pull together and help each other out in times of need.

The Kingswood Jobs Club is held every Thursday 11am-12 at Kingswood Community Centre. For more information, contact Chris on chris.skidmore.mp@parliament.uk.

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