As part of Adult Learners Week (ALW),
Southampton City Council employees were given the opportunity to
take a ride through the city on a heritage bus which advertised
both Unite and ALW.
Unite & Southampton City Council got together for ALW. This
year the Union Learner Reps (ULRs) arranged a whole raft of
activities for the whole week.
These included such things as:
Bite sized drop in computer courses;
Tour of the Clock Tower at the Civic Centre; Guided walk of the
Common and Wildlife centre; Bee Keeping;
Introduction to digital photo manipulation; Air Rifle and Target
Shooting;
Guided tour of the Hall of Aviation; Tour of St Mary’s Fire
Station; Tour of Port Health; Basic Plumbing; Guided Walk the City
Walls
The main Learning at Work day consisted of a number of stands
including:
Energy Efficiency; City Quitters; Local Colleges
Around 400 people from across the Council took part in the
activities or enquired about future learning activities. Working
with local colleges, the ULRs are currently in the process of
sourcing a range of courses for over 130 people. These courses
range from chicken rearing to clay and pigeon shooting via
floristry and onto more formal courses such as NVQs in DreamWeaver
(web site building), Customer Care and Team Leading.
Hard work by all those involved secured a bid for £600. This
money went towards paying for admission to the Hall of Aviation,
advertising, catering for the week, the heritage bus to name but a
few.
At the end of the week we had an award ceremony, where a number
of learners received certificates for completing their key skills
training. The Right Honourable MP John Denham, the Secretary of
State for Innovation, Universities and Skills came to present the
awards. In his speech he stated that he “was very pleased to be
able to present the awards and that the Southampton City Council
Union Learning Centre based at Town Depot was known to be one of
the leading centres in the country.”
Just to put the final cherry on the cake, the lead Unite RLO –
Dave Ross - received an award from the TUC for his work on learning
& skills at the council.
After 10 months of organisation we are all very happy with the
success of the event and have already started planning for next
year to make sure that it is bigger and better than previous years
and involves a wider range of staff. We would like to thank the
managers of Southampton City Council who without their support in
allowing release time for their staff to run or attend learning
sessions, the event would not have resulted in the success that it
was.
