Minerva Blog
Congratulations to Children’s House who have been approved by SSSC and SQA to deliver the level 9 PDA in Childhood Practice. We look forward to working in partnership with Children’s house to help and support candidates to gain qualifications needed for the childcare sector.
Posted by Andrew on Friday, January 27th, 2012. Comment
New Year Resolutions
Happy New Year everyone. I hope that you feel rested and ready for 2012. I did a quick survey around the office today to find out if anyone had made any new year resolutions and here are the results, in no particular order:
1. Run a 10Km race
2. Lose a little weight
3. Spend less money
4. Spend more time with my family
5. Make a small difference to the environment
6. Walk more often
7. Eat less chocolate
8. Watch less TV
9. Get fit
10. Not made any resolutions
If you have made any exciting resolutions, please let us know.
Posted by Andrew on Tuesday, January 10th, 2012. Comment
Minerva Awards Ceremony 2011
On Friday 2nd December Minerva People held their annual Awards Ceremony at the Duncan Rooms at Easterbrook Hall in Dumfries. Congratulations to everyone who achieved qualificaitons during the year. There was a fabulous turnout on the day with around 110 learners receiving certificates and around another 30 guests and staff present.
We received a lot of comments on the day saying how inspirational the learners were and how postive the whole event was. We do really enjoy celebrating the achievements of people and are so pleased to play our part supporting you with your learning.
Once we get our photos ready, we will put them on our website in the gallery section, so please keep checking back.
Posted by Andrew on Monday, December 5th, 2011. Comment
Can a £1,000,000,000 get young people into work?
Can a Billion get young people into work? There was an announcement today from the UK government of a new £1bn plan to provide subsidised work and training placements to thousands of young people.
The youth contract scheme will give employers subsidies to take on 160,000 18 to 24 year olds for 6 months and the scheme will last for 3 years.
We welcome this additional funding being made available to help develop the young people in our country but the success of the scheme will ultimately depend on whether the employers are able to provide permanent jobs once the 6 month period has ended. This is the really challenging part to give hope to our young people and only when there are sustained jobs can we really be helping them.
I believe that the exisiting apprenticeship scheme already delivers excellent results and helps young people who choose not to pursue a career through an academic route with an alternative option that can also lead to extremely successful, well paid and rewarding jobs.
What are your thoughts on the new scheme?
More information on the story can be found on the BBC website here
Posted by Andrew on Friday, November 25th, 2011. Comment
SCQF at Minerva
Yesterday, Minerva People Ltd hosted two awareness raising sessions for employers on The Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework (SCQF).
The purpose of these events was to help employers in Dumfries and Galloway understand what the SCQF is, how it works and how it can benefit employers by being a tool that can be used in the recruitment, training and development of staff, utilisation of skills and for developing clear and concise job descriptions.
The SCQF is Scotland’s Lifelong Learning Framework. It was developed to meet the needs of Scotland’s learners and provides a shared context for learning in Scotland. It was created by bringing together all Scottish mainstream qualifications into a single unified Framework.
The local employers that attended the information sessions told Minerva that they found it worthwhile and are interested in developing ways of utilising the SCQF within their organisations. If you are an employer and would like more information on the SCQF, please contact Minerva.
Posted by Andrew on Thursday, November 3rd, 2011. Comment
Children in Need at Minerva People
Minerva People are supporting Children in Need this year by way of an activities day on Friday 18 November 2011 between 10 am and 2 pm. Please come along and join in with the games, home baking and other activities.
View our poster for the event by clicking on the link below.
Posted by Andrew on Tuesday, October 25th, 2011. Comment
Nursery World Awards 2011
There could only be one winner in each category at the Nursery World Awards 2011 and unfortunately it was not our Tracey McEwan. Tracey did so well to be shortlisted as a finalist and it was a fantastic evening had by all as well as a great trip to London.
Well done to Sparklers Nursery for the commendation they received within their category at the awards event as well and for nominating Tracey.
Posted by Andrew on Friday, October 7th, 2011. Comment
Decorating
If anyone visits our Dumfries office this week you may notice a slight aroma of fresh paint. We are in the process of decorating all of our office and stage one of this is the painting.
You will notice a few big changes over the next week and throughout September that we hope you will appreciate. We are trying to gradually improve the experience our customers have while at Minerva and would welcome any suggestions that you may have.
Posted by Andrew on Monday, September 5th, 2011. Comment
Official WorldHost Launch in Scotland
On Wednesday 27th July Managing Director, Tricia Hunter and WorldHost Licensed Trainer, Joanna Woodford of Minerva People attended the Scottish Launch of the WorldHost Customer Service Training Programme. The programme was launched by Scotland’s new Minister for Enterprise, Energy and Tourism, Fergus Ewing MSP.
Tricia and Joanna made Mr Ewing aware of the strength of the tourism industry in Dumfries and Galloway and the amount of training available amongst service providers. We hope he will visit soon to see for himself.
We have two licensed trainers, Katherine Crowe and Joanna. We were the first in Scotland to deliver the WorldHost Principles of Customer Service Programme, prior to the official launch.
The autumn training schedule, in Minerva’s new, in-house training room is:
13 September
18 October
8 November
1 December
Please contact one of the team at Minerva to reserve your place on this award winning training programme.
Posted by Andrew on Tuesday, August 2nd, 2011. Comment
Nursery World Awards 2011 – Finalists
Congratulations to Tracey in being nominated by Sparklers Nursery as Trainer of the year for the Nursery World Awards 2011.
It has just been announced that Tracey has now been selected as a UK finalist for the Nursery World Awards to be held in London on 30th September. We wish Tracey all the luck at this event but are so proud of what she has achieved to date. Being nominated is special but to be selected as a UK Finalist is an immense achievement. Here is the website and Tracey’s name stated as a finalist
http://www.nurseryworld.co.uk/news/1081025/Shortlists-announced-Nursery-World-Awards-2011/
Well done Tracey!
From us all at Minerva.
Posted by Andrew on Tuesday, July 26th, 2011. Comment
