So you want a job...

Recession increases the volume of job applications and reduces the number of positions available.
Writing those disappointing letters to people eager for work is not a welcome task but can make you wonder about the quality of their education.
So often I receive job applications addressed to “Dear sir or madam” when a tiny effort would secure the name of the person you wish to impress.
Worse are those letters addressed to the editor who retired in 1996 or someone not known at this address.Misspelling the name is usually not as bad.
Displaying limited knowledge of grammar and spelling does not help when seeking a job requiring such qualities.
Forgetting to sign or date the letter is also best avoided.
Recently I have noticed a growing trend not to use capital letters. For example: “i am available for interview any day but sunday”, a development we can blame partly on the internet.
The heart then sinks when you discover during an interview that the applicant “keen to write for your quality publications which I have known since childhood” has never read them.
Good manners prevent the immediate termination of the interview but not the regret of time wasted.
Schools and colleges need to teach students more about the skills of job application, especially in these difficult times.
Philip Welch

Ugly face of politics

Sadly, the fact that MPs have abused their expenses system did not come as a surprise.
It was the scale of the abuse which shocked, as did seeing our own David Heathcoat-Amory, MP for most of mid-Somerset, pilloried on the front page of the Daily Telegraph.
At least he has repaid the £380 price of horse manure for his home garden in Pilton, but several serious questions need to be answered.
Why are MPs able to set up the system for paying their own expenses?
Why are they able to act as judge and jury on their own failings in claiming expenses?
How can the party leaders claim they did not know there was widespread abuse by their own MPs?
How have MPs who say they are poorly paid with a salary of “only” £64,000 suddenly found thousands to repay “mistakes” in their expenses claims?
How many people will not vote in protest at the expenses scandal?
How many people will switch their votes from the main parties to more extreme alternatives?
Politics do matter to us all, and we cannot afford wide-scale disillusionment with the way our country is run.We need radical and urgent cross-party reform of Parliament to introduce transparency and restore public confidence in politics and politicians.
Philip Welch

Why we reach more readers than ever

Local newspapers are not on their last legs, despite reports to the contrary on television and in national papers.
In truth we are progressing through a rapid and exciting transition into a multi-media organisation.
Once we published on paper once a week. Now we also publish online every day with our websites showing dramatic increases in readers. Consequently we reach more people today than we have in our long history.
Here are a few more facts which are worth reading.
Eighty-two per cent of adults, 40 million people, read a local newspaper, making it the most widely-read medium in the country, including 74.6 per cent per cent of people aged between and 15 and 24 (BMRB/TGI 2008).
Monthly unique users for regional press websites are estimated at over 24.4m (Annual Industry Survey 2007).
As a source of information about the local area in which people live, local newspapers are three times more popular than the next medium, BBC TV news. (Press Gazette/YouGov 2007)
Local newspapers and their associated websites are 49 per cent more trusted and relied-upon than the nearest medium, commercial TV (the wanted ads III 2007).
Advertising on local newspaper websites is 77 per cent more likely to be believed and relied upon than advertising on other websites (the wanted ads III 2007).
Philip Welch

Travelling business people

We live in dark times and need celebrations. These were the well-chosen words of the chaplain to the Showmen’s Guild after the Wells May Fair was opened on Saturday morning, and how right he is.
Everyone knows about the problems of the world economy, the violence in Iraq and Afghanistan, worries about flu pandemics and the personal tragedies reported daily.
There is not much we can do about any of that, but we can resist the tide of gloom sweeping 2009 and stay positive.Regular doses of fun will always help, which is where the Somerset fairs come in.
We are fortunate to have several in the county – Glastonbury’s Tor Fair and Axbridge Blackberry Carnival are two more examples.
Not everyone likes them, and there were grumbles that the Wells fair had stopped the regular Saturday market taking place, but they do add their own colour and life.
The people who run the fairs are also often maligned.
As it is a cash-based operation they are assumed to pay no tax. In fact they have accountants, pay tax and national insurance. T
hey are not gypsies but travelling business people whose families have often been running fairs for several generations and abide by the rules of the long-established Showman’s Guild.
Philip Welch