BLOG
The Apprenticeship Networking Breakfast goes virtual this year…
Apprenticeship Virtual ‘Breakfast’!
09 February 2021
The annual Apprenticeship Breakfast sponsored by the Federation of Small Business and the Apprenticeship Ambassador Network was not able to go ahead in the usual way due to COVID. We would normally be mooching around very expensive cars at Mercedes Benz World but for this year, it was in our homes and on the TEAMS platform!
The meeting was chaired by Sue Taylor, Network Manager of ALPS and despite the change of format there were over 100 attendees! We were honoured to welcome the Skills Minister, Gillian Keegan MP who talked very positively about apprenticeships sharing her own pathway and how she started as an apprentice. Nikki Morgan, Learning and development Manager of Frimley Health and Kelly Green, a Learning and Development Apprentice shared their story of working in the NHS and the challenges during the pandemic. Kelly’s story about changing careers and being given the opportunity to retrain was particularly inspiring.
Alison Galvin, HR Director at Invotra, who were the 2019 SME winners nationally for their contribution to apprenticeships, shared the story of the ethos of having apprentices within the organisation and Ryan Taylor who started his career on a Level 3 Software Apprenticeship showed us that anything is possible as he is now studying towards a Chartered Management Degree and has high aspirations to forward his career with Invotra.
Jodi Fair Manager of the Enterprise M3 Skills and Apprenticeship hub launched the new initiative and We welcome this new resource to the area, we will now have a place to send employers ensuring they will have the best opportunities in being matched to an employer and we hope we will be able to maximised the levy transfers to small and medium sized enterprises.