"Before joining The Voluntary Sector Training Unit, I had little experience of working in a real work environment. I had plenty of education in the graphic design field, as I had successfully completed a HND in Graphic Design.

After being on Job Seeker's Allowance for a year and having little or no success in finding permanent employment, I decided to go on the New Deal option. This found me the Voluntary Sector Training Unit. From this I now have a six-month contract which enables me to work in a real work place and gain valuable experience which I need to gain permanent employment. One of my first satisfying jobs was to be given the sole responsibility of producing this newsletter. This is the third one I have completed and hope there's more. Hopefully I've made this a bit more professional, making it better for you, the reader and the Voluntary Sector Training Unit.

I have now also been given the opportunity to work on designing web pages for the Voluntary Sector Training Unit. This has been a valuable experience because I had never really used the Web or the Internet until before. I now work in conjunction with Graham Birdsall (Web Site Administrator) to produce graphics for the web. For me this has opened a new and exciting way of producing graphics to new design specifications."