Promote Woodworking: ‘buddy up’ your local school

Dave Campbell, BWF Marketing & Training Manager

The government’s Chief Construction Adviser, Peter Hansford, is calling for companies to ‘buddy up’ with local schools – promote your industry, and your business, using our template letter. (log in to make this a live link for download)

Pairing with local schools gives you the opportunity to promote the trade and the career opportunities we have in the sector, along with recruiting some of the brighter minds to your own organisation. With the general election just around the corner, Mr Hansford  is looking for good examples of employers taking the initiative in this regard, that will create some good PR for the sector and your company – and some interest with your local MP and prospective candidates.

The BWF’s Woodworking Industry Training Forum (WITForum) runs a careers campaign for 14-19 year olds called ‘Wow I Made That!’ which aims to get more people interested in joining the woodworking industry. You can direct people to the campaign  and we have a banner you can borrow and leaflets which can be handed out should you do any talks and presentations with the students. We are also working on further resources to help you in any sessions you run with schools.

You can download the template letter (log in to make this a live link for download) and put your details on it – and if you aren’t familiar with the schools in your area, you can do a search on the BBC News Education website by Post Code or Local Authority.

Last of all, do tell us if you to pair or buddy up with any schools, or if you do any other activities to promote woodworking to young people!