Kingswood Jobs: Meet the team: Sarah King

Qualifications Obtained:

First Aid at Work, GNAS Archery, Climbing, snorkelling and all Kingswood In-House Activities. Currently working towards a Business Degree with Honors in French through the Open University.

Kingswood & I

I joined Kingswood in April 2003 as an Activity Instructor when I first arrived in the UK fresh out of High School - I was looking for fun, adventure and a place to start my GAP Year and travels and I certainly found it! I was instructing at our Staffordshire Centre for a couple of months before I began doing part-time work in the Centre Reception as well.

Over Summer 2003 I was the Welfare Coordinator for Camp Beaumont at The Village, before moving across to work in our Norwich Head Office as a Human Resources Administrator, where I stayed for nearly 18 months. During this time I had the opportunity to organise and attend numerous Instructor selection weekends, and experience Kingswood from a whole new perspective! I have since had the opportunity to return to Norwich in a temporary role overseeing the Recruitment and HR Team for a period of 9 months; a challenge, but a very rewarding experience which looks great on my CV!

Whilst I enjoyed working in HR, I missed the chaos and fun of centre life and moved down to the Isle of Wight as Assistant Customer Services Manager in 2005 and have since been promoted to Customer Services Manager. Over the Summer of 2007 I had the opportunity to fill a temporary position as Assistant Centre Manager and am hoping this will become a permanent role in early 2008.

Favourite activity

All the activities have their merits, however, I have to say that Caving and Nightline were probably two of my favourites. Caving is a real challenge for a lot of the children (and teachers) that come through our doors, though is consistently one of the most favourite and memorable activities for the children whilst on centre. Nightline (our blindfolded obstacle course), is very rewarding from an Instructor's point of view as you have the opportunity to take a group of children and in a very short space of time see them start to work as a team and motivate and encourage each other.

More recently as a CSM, I organise and attend a weekly Cheese and Wine Party for all the Teachers on centre; I can't think of many jobs where you get paid to have to do this each week!

Worst bit about Kingswood

All the moves around the country that I've done have meant not just the hard part of saying goodbye to friends and colleagues, but endless amounts of packing and unpacking... not my favourite thing in the world!

These incidentally, (minus the packing and unpacking of course!) are also the best things about the job however.

Best bit about Kingswood

The things I love most about this company are the various opportunities it has presented me along the way both professionally and personally and the many places around the country it has allowed me to explore. With all the friends you make from around the world, it's also helped me create my own 'hotel' network of free beds and make some amazing travel buddies!

The next step?

I hope to work as an Assitant Centre Manager in the very near future, perhaps at one of our new centres and eventually to manage one of the Kingswood Centres... possibly in France?!

My advice to anyone who is thinking of joining

Come to Kingswood for the right reasons and grab every opportunity that passes by... if you want an endless amount of experience in this industry, qualifications, a chance to make loads of new friends, have fun and work in lots of different places around the UK... you'll fit right in! Don't forget to be open to the possibility that this may turn into a career move for you - I joined Kingswood with the intention of staying for six months and being in the UK for 12 months and have now been here nearly 5 years and am still loving it!