JOBS RESEARCH TRUST SIGNS PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT WITH MAYORS TASKFORCE FOR JOBS. (left to right) Yvonne Brown (volunteer), Dave Owens (trustee), Vivian Hutchinson (trustee), Elaine Gill (Local Employment Co-ordination Group), Rodger Smith (trustee) and Claire Stewart (Mayor of New Plymouth).

IN EARLY 2000, the Jobs Research Trust reached a defining point. We had exceeded our targets in paid subscriptions for The Jobs Letter, but we recognised that by charging for subscriptions we had created a limitation on the number of readers we could reach. If we wanted to further expand our charitable purposes, that is, fostering public discussion on employment, unemployment and poverty in New Zealand, then we recognised that we needed to make The Jobs Letter more accessible.

From this perspective, the trustees resolved to abandon the paid subscriber model (which had given us an income for seven years) and instead strive to make The Jobs Letter freely available on the internet. The idea posed a fundamental structural change and dilemma for the Trust: we could not be sure that The Jobs Letter would survive without the paid subscription base that provided the bulk of our income. But the Trustees resolved that for The Jobs Letter to be as effective a tool as it could be, for as many people as possible ... it needed to be freely available to everyone one who is interested to read it.

The decision was a leap of faith. But our seven-year track record had begun to culminate in some important strategic alliances with organisations that held similar values to ours and who were willing and able to back our charitable purposes. In this respect, the support of the Mayors Taskforce for Jobs along with the Ministry of Economic Development has been critical. We also gratefully acknowledge the help from Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand, the Cathy Pelly Maungarongo Trust, the JR McKenzie Trust and the koha (donations) of many individual supporters. These organisations and individuals have provided the resources that have helped us to successfully make The Jobs Letter freely available to everyone.

On 18th of August, 2000, we published issue 129, the first electronically free-to-all issue of The Jobs Letter. This and all subsequent issues have been published in three formats: an expanded internet version posted on our website with readers alerted to it by an email notice; an on-line Adobe PDF version either emailed directly to readers or downloadable from our website; and the traditional printed and posted copy that is still available on a paid subscription basis. At the changeover, about three-quarters of our paid subscribers shifted to the free email versions while the remainder still prefer to pay for and receive the printed paper edition of The Jobs Letter in the post.

What is greatly satisfying has been the huge increase in traffic on our website since we went free-to-all. We estimate that our readership has increased four-fold (from about 5,000 to 20,000) since the changeover. We believe that The Jobs Letter is now giving the widest number of people possible “... the tools to think with”, and there are very few people in this country involved in employment or poverty issues who are not using, or at least aware of, this resource.

WORKING BEE VOLUNTEERS on Jobs Letter Mailout Days.

The changeover to a mostly electronic production has meant the end to our need for our team of volunteers to help with the mailouts. For years as many as eight volunteers would dutifully and happily come to our offices every two to three weeks to fold The Jobs Letter and stuff envelopes. It was an emotional end of an era as we sealed up the last of the big mailouts, and we thank the volunteers who have been such an important part of the history The Jobs Letter.

KARL GORRINGE

During 2000/01, the Trust took on a new young staff member. Karl Gorringe was a former journalism student who had been volunteering for us in the office. In August we employed Karl through a Taskforce Green scheme and we stayed with us for seven months until he decided to move a larger center to pursue his other interests.

Also during this year, our long-time Diary column writer and Trustee Dave Owens announced he was taking leave to go and volunteer in East Timor. Motivated by the fact that the Indonesian invasion and 24 years of occupation and human rights abuses were a direct result of our western governments turning a blind eye to this breach of international law, and the fact that the unemployment rate was said to be over 80%, Dave offered his experience to an East Timorese community group in Dili called Futo. He worked for four months as a volunteer teaching building skills. During that time he emailed 11 newspaper articles back from East Timor which were published in the Taranaki paper The Daily News , Trust administrator Shirley Vickery created a “Dave Owens in East Timor” page on our Jobs Research Trust website where his articles continue to be posted.

JRT TRUSTEE Dave Owens preparing for volunteering in East Timor.

Over the 2000/01 year we produced several special issues of The Jobs Letter : “Jobs from Waste” February 2000 (issue 118); “The Digital Divide” September 2000 (issue 131); “Sustainable New Zealand” December 2000 (issue 134); “New Zealand Job Search Websites” February 2001 (issue 140), this one written by Karl Gorringe.

Editor of the The Jobs Letter Vivian Hutchinson has been in great demand as a speaker this past year. He gave the keynote address at the launch of the Mayors Taskforce for Jobs in April 2000. His speech “Making Hope Possible” has been widely reproduced both nationally and internationally. In November, Vivian spoke to a day-long workshop of community groups in Dunedin. He also spoke to both the Cathy Pelly Maungarongo Trust and the J R McKenzie Trust on community philanthropy. And he addressed the Mayors Taskforce for Jobs again in March 2001, this time on youth unemployment.

Jobs Research Trustees have also attended several conferences this year including: “Redesigning Resources” in Christchurch in June where Vivian and the core group of the Mayors Taskforce for Jobs had a private meeting with American author Paul Hawkin; the “Zero Waste” conference in Kaitaia in December; and the Mayors Taskforce for Jobs strategy and networking meeting in Manukau City in March 2001.

We look forward to an equally challenging year in 2001/02 ... and continue to be grateful for all the support we have received for our work.

Jo Howard
Rodger Smith
Dave Owens
Vivian Hutchinson
Trustees of the Jobs Research

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