This year, National Apprenticeship Week runs from 10th to 16th February, here’s a spotlight on our own apprentices at Touch Wood.
Skills for Life
Here at Touch Wood, we run an apprenticeship programme helping young people gain skills for life. We currently have two apprentices on our books, Adam & Declan. They both work in the Touch Wood team alongside our staff and volunteers, helping with the day-to-day tasks and picking up new skills along the way.
By offering apprenticeships and teaching skills on the job, it drives productivity in our organisation. It means that not only are we doing our bit to save the planet and our valuable resources by recycling and reusing wood, we are also investing in our community too. Apprentices help us deliver a talent pipeline to meet Touch Wood’s skills needs.
Adam
Adam came to Touch Wood via the Manchester Kickstarter scheme in 2022 without any experience in carpentry, but, he explains, that didn’t stand in his way: “From a learning experience it has been very, very good. I came here from college not knowing anything about carpentry and now I know something – plus it’s a confidence builder.”
He continued, “carpentry is a pretty practical skill generally speaking so it’s a good set of skills to start off with. I’d definitely recommend an apprenticeship with Touch Wood – you will definitely learn something which will help you in the future.” In addition to picking up skills in woodworking and carpentry, Adam has received extensive Health & Safety (ISOH) formal training adding a new certification to his CV, he has also been trained to drive a Forklift Truck, a licence he now has forever.
Declan
Declan had some woodworking experience when he first arrived at Touch Wood. He explains, “I’d done 2 years in college in joinery and carpentry and I was out of work for a bit. I managed to get in here on a Kick Starter Apprenticeship, it was 6 months to start, then they kept me for another 6 months. After that, I came here fully then.”
“It’s different to the work you do at college because it’s reclaimed wood, you can bring it back to life instead of going straight to a timber yard and building something out of that – I do enjoy that. I’ve learned quite a lot on top of the stuff I learned at college, even building confidence about customer service. I wasn’t too happy about it, but if a customer comes in, I feel happy to help them out now.”
As well as improving his skills with wood and customers, Declan received training on Forklift Trucks. He says it’s a real benefit to him looking to the future, “I’ve got my Forklift licence now too which is a good thing to have”.
Declan speaks very highly of his time with Touch Wood so far, “100% I’d recommend doing an apprenticeship with Touch Wood, it’s a good place to start off with if you’ve never had a job before. You come in here, learn different things and they are nice people to be around as well.”
Help us offer more apprenticeships
We want to offer further apprenticeship opportunities in future and need your help to do that. We currently have a Community Share Offer open for people to invest in our organisation. Some of that money will go to develop a new role within Touch Wood as a Trainee Joiner/Carpenter, Forklift Truck operator and potentially a van driver too.
This role will also assist in recycling collections from time to time, across wood and all other service offerings at EMERGE.
In order to do this, we need more financial support for our Community Share Offer. To find out more about our Community Share Offer, please click on this link to visit our Share Offer webpage.