I like Bank Holidays...

Blissfully quiet - if you don't set foot in the village before sundown - no email, no phone and whole heap of work completed, wonderful I can actually see the bottom of my in tray (well, almost). Once the official Bank Holiday was over and it stopped raining we've had a wonderful week. The first swallow was spotted yesterday as were a couple of peacock butterflies and we've had a report of a cuckoo calling. The garden is drying up and might get weeded at last.
Back in the office a few people managed to find time to send us job adverts meaning that there is a Weekly edition, we did begin to wonder on Wednesday when only one job was received all day!

STOP PRESS: We've just realised that we've left out something rather vital! We'll be right back in a minute...

OK, presses rolling again. our seven page edition is now eight and now has 55 new paid posts of which 34 came direct to CJS. It also includes the one thousandth paid post of the year.

Perhaps we've been a little too laid back this week or maybe the sunshine has just addled our brains.

CJS Monthly

The April edition is now online, only 2 pages of jobs I'm afraid there are however 5 pages of training courses online. The paper copies will be with you on Thursday. A short press release about the British Wildlife Photography Awards 2010 is included, CJS are again sponsoring the habitat category.
Click Here to read the April edition.

Finally...

The end of the week arrives, it's been a busy week. Our misbehaving computer is getting worse and is causing all sorts of problems, it's created a rather frantic form of CJS musical chairs, or maybe that should be musical computers! TB's on holiday this week in sunny(?) spain hiking through various mountains and her editing role has been shared out across the Team, so sorry for any typo's we're not quite as proficient. Regardless, the Weekly edition is now printing and as usual the digital version is already online for digital subscribers. Multi-user subscribers should have received new access details this week, the old details will be valid for another week or two but if you've not received yours please check with your CJS co-ordinator and then they can contact us.
This week it's 8 sides, 56 new paid posts of which 48 came direct to CJS.

We have a small job available for someone who lives in Northern Ireland. Not too onerous, but not highly paid either! If you're curious please contact TheTeam@countryside-jobs.com

3000

That's the number of jobs advertised in CJS Weekly so far this year.
That's new, not previously published paid countryside jobs all in the UK.

This week's edition is currently printing and is already online. In addition to the usual jobs there's the training calendar for November.
Also a reminder to complete your subscribers surveys if you've not already done so. You'll also find more details about the forthcoming postal strikes and details of what you can do to obtain your copy of CJS Weekly.

The fascinating feature article this week is about a request for you to photograph ladybirds, apparently now's the time they're all coming in to hibernate and CEH would like you to photograph any you see and send them your photos.

And finally as if that lot is not enough for one posting, earlier this week we had the first reports of snow buntings, KH saw three on Saturday and AW's father-in-law reported 2 at Greenend, yesterday a small flock of redwing was seen heading into the field in front of the CJS office. Snow shoes at the ready then, usually three weeks after the first buntings...

Friday, Friday

We celebrated CJS's birthday yesterday. With Birthday Cake and yes, balloons! Fifteen years and still going strong, here's to the next fifteen.
And so saying this week's Weekly is now printing and is already online. it has a last call for entries to the British Wildlife Photography Awards, competition closes next Friday 31 July. For more click here
There are also details of a wonderful opportunity to be a Village champion as part of the Village SOS project run by BBC, Mark Your Mark and the Big Lottery Fund.

Tweet, tweet

We're tweeting, no, that's not pretending to be a sparrow!
All our daily updates are now on Twitter. You can get instant updates on the latest job postings via Twitter.
Follow us at: https://twitter.com/CountrysideJobs

77% direct

The second of the pre-Christmas warnings is included in Monday's edition of CJS Weekly – my, how time flies. The Weekly is now printing, this week it's eleven sides again this but time with 110 new paid posts of which 85 were sent direct to CJS, that's a whopping 77% a greater percentage than at any time through the year so we must be doing something right!!

New this week, you can now view back issues of CJS Weekly, free of charge, online. We're aiming to keep about a month's worth available at any one time, however because CJS is 'subscription only' the most recent freely available edition is three weeks old. So you might find a few jobs still in date but most will have closed. Also this week we've been reviewing the publications we take to create the jobs digest section, as a result we've dropped a few and added a couple of new titles. If you think we've dropped some or not considered one that should be included please let us know and we'll look again. As ever, your feedback is always welcome. We're off to think about Christmas presents…..

Friday news

Our new printer really is super fast, even faster than the other one has now been nicknamed 'Zippy' – don’t ask it's probably best not to! Copies of CJS Weekly are now falling into the usual huge heaps. This week's edition is 11 sides long with 76 new paid posts of which 34 were sent direct to CJS from the employer.

Whilst the rest of the country swelters with bright sunshine Goathland shivers under grey clouds and intermittent drizzle, we've had the heating on today and are thinking about relighting the woodstove.

Fish update: The tank of tropical fish seem to have coped well with the upheaval of being moved, we only lost two neon tetras and one rosy barb all the others including the lovely big blue oranda and the charismatic golden loach are swimming and eating normally – which is good news. As we'd lost a couple of fish prior to the move there was a gap which we've filled with two replacement neons and three Red Columbian tetras and are predictably now known as the drug barons.

Don't forget Monday is another Bank Holiday so although we'll be in the office catching up with all those things that lurk at the bottom of the in tray there won't be any adverts posted online.

Tomorrow's Saturday – thank goodness.

Today has not been a good day. It started with a large soot fall which office dog Cara (IWH) walked over as many carpets as she could, then delays with display adverts for CJS Weekly and one, which in a first for CJS, we actually rejected – you didn't want to be a licence officer for taxis and bingo halls now did you – thought not. But at last the printers are running and barring any further disasters your CJS will be with you later today for online readers and on Monday for postal subscribers. This week's edition is 14 sides long including 102 new paid vacancies of which 42 were sent direct to CJS from the employer.

Spring has sprung - it's official.

It may have been a shorter than usual week but we've been as busy as ever. Monday's edition of CJS Weekly is rolling off the printers and is now available to view online. It maybe only 10 sides long this week but it has 109 new vacancies of which 68 came to CJS direct from the employer.

Nature news: On Wednesday at 4.35pm the first swallow was sighted, resting on wires in the yard of a local farm and today another local has reported hearing the first cuckoo. CJS staff have been stuck in the office so have not been to see or hear these new arrivals, although we have been watching the new lambs in the field across the road from the office and the starlings feasting on leatherjackets in the lawn, which was mowed for the first time this week.

The Friday update.

The week's gone smoothly – but then that's what you'd expect from us. Loads of new adverts online this week and don't forget to have a look at the volunteers page which is updated weekly. Monday 2 April edition of CJS Weekly is 14 sides long with 134 vacancies of which 52 were sent direct to CJS.

Quick reminder: If you're planning to send us an advert for next week's Weekly or for the Monthly don't forget next weekend is Easter therefore we have revised deadlines. Copy for CJS Weekly and booking for CJS Monthly is 5pm Thursday 5 April. Copy for April's Monthly must be received BEFORE 12 noon Tuesday 10 April so why not send it before the bank holiday just to be sure.

CJS Weekly & new job codes.

Everything's gone almost smoothly and the printers are now running. This week's edition is a huge 17 sides long with 126 new vacancies of which 51 came to CJS direct from the employer. This week we've introduced a new method of referencing the jobs, it lets readers know which vacancies are also on our website where there are often many more details than we are able to fit into the Standard (free) linage adverts; have a look at page 9 for details.

The end of another week.

The first daffodil opened today and was nodding in the weak sunshine until it clouded over.

Monday's edition of CJS Weekly is now printing, it contains adverts for 99 new vacancies, 53 of which were sent direct to CJS. We're also sending the email copies using the new software again and this week we've got our fingers crossed that the attachments don't disappear into the ether like last week. There are rumours of snow next week, BBC weather gives us light snow showers on Monday and Tuesday but Metcheck says rain showers so we shall see. Any important news will appear here.

The end of another week.

It's been a mixed week, it started well with fantastic views of the lunar eclipse on Saturday (perhaps that was the end of last week?) with nice sunshine for most of the week. But Tuesday was fraught with the non-arrival of envelopes for the Monthly, Wednesday was worrying as for the second time we attempted the server upgrade but it went well, Thursday was the usual and Friday has been surprisingly relaxed – for a Friday. We think we've begun the wind down to the end of the financial year and Easter with a gradual decrease in adverts but not that much as Monday's edition of CJS Weekly still contains 114 new vacancies, 51 direct to CJS, over 12 pages.

Hope you all have a good weekend.

One thousand jobs!

Monday's edition of CJS Weekly contains the one thousandth vacancy advertised by CJS since January. Since the beginning of the year we've advertised over 1000 new, not previously advertised, paid UK vacancies plus a few international ones and loads of volunteers too which we don't count in the overall jobs total. Monday's edition is 17 pages with 129 vacancies, 68 of which came direct to CJS.

Here are a few stats for the number-crunchers (that'll be me then), we've advertised 1004 jobs, 598 came direct. That’s 59.6% direct to CJS. If you've subscribed and received every copy since 15/1 it's cost you 0.93p per advertised vacancy.

The training section has grown over the past couple of weeks and today a whole host of new courses have been added to the online rolling programme and there are now over 900 different courses and events listed. We have also added a few new providers and longer courses. So have a look at: http://www.countryside-jobs.com/index/training.htm

The lull before the storm?

After a busy few days (perhaps that should be weeks) it's finally beginning to slow down and we've had time to think. We're using the lull to catch up on a few things and to start planning a few new features.

Yesterday we published the first Special Edition of 2007, it features Seasonal and Volunteer work and is packed full of useful information and loads of adverts. So have a read.

The outlook on the owl box is not looking good, the proposed tree is too straight which means the box would be vertical and the branches are all at nearly 90º to the trunk so on these limbs it would be horizontal not at all want a homeless Tawny want. Our next plan of campaign is to try work out a way to fix the box at an angle, with perhaps a wedge between the back of the box and the trunk.

The weather has been balmy, once again you could almost believe it's spring – but last time we said that it snowed for a week. On one of the intake fields a large flock of lapwing has been seen wheeling in the wind and crying out across the moor fringes, but so far no curlew, once they arrive we know the seasons really have turned the corner.

We're off to eat pancakes now - don't forget the lemon juice!

CJS Weekly + Special Edition

Well it's Friday so we've survived another week. And that means there must be another copy of CJS on it's way to subscribers - this week it's 12 sides with 108 new paid jobs of which 62 were sent direct to CJS from the employer. It also contains the quarterly Special Edition supplement which this time features seasonal and volunteering work. It's a jam packed 14 pages of articles, information, tips and those all important adverts.