End of Term - whopee!

Well that's it, everything published, computers closed down, answerphone message changed - the CJS Office is now closed and for us at least Christmas starts here!

Hope you all have a good Christmas and we'll be back bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in the New Year ready to deal with the inevitable mountain.

Last Weekly of 2006.

Another milestone passed. This time it's that the last CJS Weekly of 2006 has gone to press. During the year we've published over 5,300 UK paid jobs plus a handful of overseas vacancies, contracts and tenders and not forgetting all those volunteer vacancies and trainees posts. The next Weekly will be published on Monday 15 January - and it's bound to be a bumper edition.

Oh, and the Marsh Tit is back and our Goldfinches have returned, must be the new nyjer seed. But it's still raining, will it never stop and dry up??

Christmas holidays are in sight.

Time marches on. We've just closed the CJS Weekly subscriber database for 2006. That means if you've not paid up yet - it's too late for this year!!

On the natural history front we had full bird feeders again today. Including a couple of Marsh Tits which makes a full house (for us, we don't get Willow Tits) with every member of the tit family represented at the same time even if not on the same feeder.

CJS Monthly - December edition

It was a long day and a longer night but we've printed, stuffed and posted the Monthly for this month. It's 10 pages and has two inserts - poor postie had over 940 kg to collect. It's now online in full and should be landing on your desks on Thursday. This is the last CJS Monthly of 2006, the next will be the January edition due on Thursday 11th.

It's winter!

That's it, we give in - it's officially winter here in Goathland we had freezing temperatures all weekend. The first fieldfares may have arrived nearly a fortnight ago and the gunnera gone into hibernation under his winter bedding of straw and horticultural fleece but it was still warm and sunny. So with frostbitten fingers (well, almost - we like to exaggerate) we hung the final winter bird feeders and this morning the peanut feeder outside the office window is smothered in long tail tits over a dozen at one time. They do fly through at other times but are really only seen regularly once the colder weather arrives.
Picture from RSPB. For more on Long-tails have a look at: http://www.rspb.org.uk/birds/guide/l/longtailedtit/index.asp

CJS Weekly

Penultimate edition of CJS Weekly for 2006 printed today and we've passed the 5,000th job of the year but weekly numbers are falling in the run up to Christmas.

Also new today, added to the website an option to receive email reminders to check your copy of CJS Weekly online.

A Day of Firsts

First First: In the post this morning the first Christmas card of this year for CJS, from BASC - thanks Lin.

Illustration is by Josephine Copley. Look at that labrador - from the wiggle it could be one of the office dogs!

Second First: This is the biggy, for the first time ever in CJS history (twelve years and counting) a subscriber turned up at our door to pay for their subscription! To say we were surprised is an understatement - more like stunned, we're not used to visitors at least not without a weeks notice and several phone calls for directions (we're rather hidden away and off the beaten track).