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About Us

windswept pine tree on heather moorland (pixabay)

What we are:     

Countryside Jobs Service is an ethical small business publishing free & low cost information to promote countryside careers in the UK & environmental conservation worldwide.  CJS was created and the edition first published in July 1994 by Anthea and Niall Carson.  CJS is endorsed by both the Scottish Countryside Rangers Association & the Countryside Management Association; CJS supports both with a percentage of income.  We are trade members of BASC and a member of Country Land and Business Association.

What we do:  

CJS primarily produces information about vacancies in the countryside. Click on Jobs to see the current vacancies or on Volunteers to see the available placements.  Offices within the countryside and conservation sector are eligible to receive a free copy of CJS Professional. CJS Weekly is the original publication and contains details of all recruitment advertising on the website plus lots more.

CJS Focus is published periodically and each edition highlights a different area of the sector, these are freely available online.

In addition to recruitment we also have an extensive Training Directory with details of professional events and short courses, information on training providers and centres as well as listings for longer courses both in colleges and available via distance learning.

CJS Professional carries adverts for relevant goods and services, new grants and funding and other snippets of information, also on our Bulletin Board.

Introduced in 2010 is the News Section which has updates on the latest developments across the sector with a selection of daily headlines as chosen by the CJS Team.

 

How CJS works:

A social enterprise is a business that trades for a social and / or environmental purpose. Since its inception this has been one of the core principles behind CJS.
Although we cannot officially call ourselves a social enterprise CJS behaves as though it is. We follow the main aims of a social enterprise.

  • CJS makes its money from selling goods and service.
  • CJS covers its own costs.
  • CJS pays its staff reasonable salaries.
  • CJS does not exist to make profits for shareholders (we don't have any).
  • CJS does not exist to make its owners very wealthy.
  • CJS does not rely on volunteering, grants or donations to stay afloat long term.

All of which are key elements of a social enterprise.

The one we fail in is "putting at least half of all profit made into making a difference".   

This is not because we're hoarding mountains of cash or stashing it in offshore accounts to avoid paying tax.  Instead we prefer not to charge the countryside and environmental sectors exorbitant fees to advertise for staff or to promote their projects, allowing the organisations to keep their money and spend it where they see fit, rather than CJS taking a hefty chunk to redistribute at a later date.  This is one of the reasons so much of what we do is done free of charge.  Of the money we do take, a percentage of all gross online recruitment takings are given to CMA.  A proportion of all Scottish recruitment advertising and subscriptions is given directly to SCRA.  Note this is gross ie not profit it's a percentage of what we charge the advertiser.  We also collect donations from readers and subscribers which are passed on to our chosen charities.
But we do have to pay our costs to keep the business running and to pay our staff reasonable wages, so somewhere along the line we do have to charge.  We don't pay big wages but when we do make a profit it is shared amongst the Team to top up wages as a reward for hard work and this is one of the reasons we say we work on a cooperative basis (although I prefer democratic dictatorship, ed).  Wherever possible we keep office costs down but are prepared to pay slightly more when a service or product is also putting back and making a difference.
We don't put profits into making a difference because everything we do (or try to) is aimed at making a difference and helping the British countryside and conservation sectors to thrive and supporting the people who work in them.

For more about social enterprise businesses please see: www.socialenterprise.org.uk

Who we are:  

A small team of ex-rangers, educations officers and ecologists working on a co-operative basis to ensure we publish the widest range of relevant information for our readers.  Our backgrounds in the industry ensure we know what will be relevant to those currently in the field.  Meet the Team

Where to find us / how to contact us: 

Always at this web address. By post to: CJS, The Moorlands, Goathland, Whitby, North Yorkshire YO22 5LZ. Tel: 01947 896007.

Email: ranger@countryside-jobs.com   or use the online contact form

 

For more about us please read:

Built by Jack Barber in Whitby, North Yorkshire. Visit Herbal Apothecary for herbal practitioner supplies, Sweet Cecily's for natural skincare, BeeVital for propolis health supplements and Future Health Store for whole foods, health supplements, natural & ethical gifts.