Well it’s school holiday time and there’s no place busier than Bolton Lads & Girls Club. I’ve just popped down for some lunch with Jeremy Glover MBE their hard working Chief Executive and a chat with their committed staff and last but certainly not least the kids there having some fun.

As usual the club was packed out with lots of different activities from Football to Climbing to their new Enterprise Room.

It wasthe Enterprise Room that  really impressed me today. They are running courses for various age groups on many subjects, While I was there today there was a group getting help with CV writing, job applications and help with their telephone skills.

I’ve listed below the details of all the courses that they are currently running. Anyone interested should contact the club for more information on how to get involved on 01204 540100. I’m pictured below with a few of the staff on duty today as follows Johnny Parttington, Daryl Hosker, Andy Glassbrook, Billy Hughes, Conor Williams, Rebecca Lawson, and Bryn Yorke. Thanks to all of you for making so welcome as usual.

Deborah with staff from The Club

Senior Club                        aged 12 – 21 years

Job Club                               Every Monday from 6.00 – 8.00pm                           C.V’s, Covering letters, Job searches, Interview skills, Telephone skills, Apprenticeship opportunities.

Tuck Shop Board              Every Tuesday from 5.00pm -6.00pm                      Running the tuck shop business deciding on price, promotions, reports etc

Taste of Enterprise          Every Tuesday from 6.30 – 7.30pm                           Introduction to Enterprise and doing mini enterprise workshops.

Jumpability                         Every Thursday from 6.00 – 7.00pm                         A project developing a book that is made by young persons and will be sold in local shops. Learning about photo and graphical skills

Make Your Mark              Every Thursday from 7.00 – 9.00pm                         A membership base of young person’s that plan, make, develop and sell products and enter national competitions.

Junior Club                         aged 8 – 12 years

Taste of Enterprise          Every Friday 6.30 – 7.30pm                                          Introduction to Enterprise and doing mini enterprise workshops  

Pathways Project             aged 15-16 years              (Neets)

1:1                                          Tuesdays 1.00 – 4.00pm                                                Information about their future goals and ensuring they are in education, training or employment as well as C.Vs, covering letters and job searches.

School Sessions                Monday, Tuesday 0900 – 1600                                   Delivering workshops on Interview skills, telephone skills, Pathways award and taste of business.

Other                                    Various                                                                                 Enterprise sessions

Mentoring project          aged 8-16 years

Taste of Enterprise          As requested                                                                     Introduction to Enterprise and doing mini enterprise workshops.

Independence group     aged 12 – 25 years           (Disability Group)

Taste of Enterprise          Thursdays 5.00pm – 6.00pm                                        Introduction to Enterprise and doing mini enterprise workshops. (Accredited)

Other:

Residential Enterprise                  Taster sessions to encourage them to come down to Enterprise and develop themselves.

Business Support                             Advice on all aspects of business as well as financial support if needed.

Speedway Project                           A project of understanding job roles, sport and how it functions as a business. (Accredited)

£10 challenge                                    Three different types of £10 challenge that is a competition between two teams to make the most money in a set period of time. (Accredited)

Me and My Money                         A session that is around understanding credit/debit, credit rating as well as wage slips, bank accounts and more. (Accredited)

I travelled last week to Bosnia Herzegovina with a group of other Conservative Parliamentary Candidates, CCHQ staff, MP’s, Lord Ashcroft, Baroness Warsi and The Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague. I haven’t visited anywhere quite like this before, and I feel privileged to have been part of the trip.

The project was to support the charity ‘Fund for Refugees’ which was set up by Lady Nott – the wife of Sir John Nott the former Defence Minister and is herself from the area.

I left Manchester and 3 plane journeys later arrived in Sarajevo for the 4 hour journey to Srebrenica where we were to stay with local families for the week.  Each morning we had a 45 min journey to the village where we were working, the majority of the journey was on an unmade road. Here we completed the inside of a house that we had raised funds to build as a gift to The Fund for Refugees Charity from The Conservative Party . We also removed 6 ‘6” of old foundations from a destroyed house along side the new one. It was an absolute privilege to watch the lady move in who had been unable to return to the area for the last 15 years.

We also built a football pitch for the local community to use and gave out several kits which had been donated. I personally secured donated kits from Cooperative Insurance and Macdonalds kindly donated other equipment.

Mothercare were also very generous and donated 2 crates of toys which we gave to local children. Microsoft were equally as generous with their donation of computer equipment and their time to accompany us and install the equipment at a local school built by the charity.

Phil Gartside has also personally pledged to me more kits from The Wanderers and to send out some of the training team to do some coaching for the kids.

A typical day was up at 7am for breakfast, up to the village were we all worked on the various projects, mine specifically on the removal of the old foundations. A packed lunch around 1.30 was consumed under a tree in the 30 degree heat (I’m not complaining coming from the UK!) then back to work, plenty of water from the stream and the bathroom was behind the cow shed!

Back to Srebrenica for around 7pm, a cold beer before a cold shower (with 9 girls to 3 bedrooms in a local house, the hot water never lasted the round). Dinner around 8.30 then some chill time………

The last day we were driven the 4 hours to Sarajevo were we met with Haris Silajdzic, The President of Bosnia Herzegovina, this was followed with a meeting with The High Representative and a meeting with The Grand Mufti.

Any one wanting to make a donation to The fund for Refugees should visit their website   http://ffris.org/ 

Will I be returning……..absolutely.