/ NEWS Bringing Aycliffe Business Park Together | 5
Ray Dobson, director of plumbing and electrical contractor K Hewitt & Co and Natalie Davison, the principal and chief executive of Bishop Auckland College, opened the new plumbing and gas centre at South West Durham Training.
New plumbing centre offers Gas Safe training
A new plumbing and gas centre offering all the key training accreditation needed by domestic plumbers and gas engineers has been officially opened by South West Durham Training.
The Newton Aycliffe-based centre caters for all domestic core gas safety and appliances initial, reassessment and training needs to meet Gas Safe Register requirements, including CCN1, CENWAT, CKR1, HTR1, MET1 and CPA1 assessment. Training courses also include Unvented Hot Water, Water Regulations( WRAS), Part L Energy Efficiency and Legionella.
Electrical accreditation in Part P Full Scope, 17th Edition and Initial Verification Inspection & Testing is also offered, alongside commercial courses in Forklift Operator, Health & Safety, Hydraulics and Welding Procedures.
The new centre is an extension of the commercial training offer from South West Durham Training, a subsidiary of Bishop Auckland College which will next year celebrate its 50th anniversary as an engineering training provider.
It was opened by Ray Dobson, director of plumbing and electrical contractor K Hewitt & Co and Natalie Davison, the principal and chief executive of Bishop Auckland College, who said:“ In addition to the new gas centre, the college has provided plumbing training and apprenticeships for local companies for over 50 years.
“ This new initiative and investment will support more companies with their bespoke training needs now and in the future.”
Mr Dobson, who is joint owner of Bishop Auckland-based Hewitt’ s following an MBO last year, added:“ Hewitt’ s have a longstanding relationship with the college, training apprentices. This new development will enable lots of businesses to access plumbing and gas training within their local area.”
The centre is offering package deals and other special offers for initial bookings before the end of April, and can access up to £ 1,500 funding for firms who recruit a plumbing apprentice.
For more information about the new centre’ s training packages, contact Darren Raby at draby @ swdt. co. uk or 01325 313194.
Craft entrepreneur inspires students
Crafter’ s Companion founder Sara Davies was on hand to inspire the next generation of art and design students from Darlington College.
The award-winning businesswoman from County Durham delivered a card making and colouring workshop to a group of students as part of a wider plan to get more people involved in crafting and inspire budding entrepreneurs.
The workshop included a presentation from Sara about how she went from a startup business while at university to a global company with customers all over the world and an operation in California.
The talk coincided with the planned opening of the company’ s first ever UK retail store at Aycliffe Business Park in May.
The store is being designed to be the brand’ s flagship store that is intended to educate and become a destination for anyone interested in crafting.
Sara added:“ It’ s a very exciting time for our company. The craft industry is booming and our new store is a reflection of that.”
Read more about Crafter’ s Companion’ s grand opening on the May Bank Holiday weekend on pages 8 & 9.
HOW OFTEN DO YOU REDEFINE YOUR ROLES?
Recruiting to replace a staff member is a great opportunity to carry out a spring clean and redefine exactly how you need the replacement to contribute to your business.
It gives you the chance to question the contribution the position makes towards achieving your overall targets and objectives and it’ s a great opportunity redefine the ones you originally set.
Ensuring staff are aware of your expectations around activity and performance is vital.
Without clear direction, targets and milestones your employee might do what they think is best and that might not be in keeping with your vision of what good looks like.
Providing the objectives you set are realistic and achievable it will ensure your new team member is measured fairly during probation and as productive as possible.
If you’ re replacing a colleague and the company has moved on significantly it’ s time to revisit the original job description and ensure that your original brief is still valid and that you’ re asking for the right competencies, qualifications and experience.
At Fleet Recruitment we go to great lengths to understand our client’ s needs and the impact the new employee needs to bring either operationally or financially.
By truly understanding our clients business and their challenges, strategic plan, targets and key performance indicators we are able to drill down into a candidate’ s competencies, properly challenge any claims made on CVs and provide the right people to whom we have been able to properly position a vacancy.
To find out more about our competitive and highly regarded recruitment service, call us on 01325 313184.
Neil O’ Connor Managing Director, Fleet Recruitment
AYCLIFFE TODAY BUSINESS
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