It’s been a transformative year at the Skills Centre. In July 2024, we moved into our newly renovated, fully accessible and environmentally sustainable building – our biggest milestone to date! This space was built for community, with room for other nonprofits, training programs, and shared services that make Trail stronger. 
In 2024/2025, we supported clients through skills training, food security programs, and employment services. Highlights include: 
<ul>
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</ul>
<ul>
<li aria-setsize="-1" data-leveltext="" data-font="Symbol" data-listid="1" data-list-defn-props="{&quot;335552541&quot;:1,&quot;335559685&quot;:720,&quot;335559991&quot;:360,&quot;469769226&quot;:&quot;Symbol&quot;,&quot;469769242&quot;:[8226],&quot;469777803&quot;:&quot;left&quot;,&quot;469777804&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;469777815&quot;:&quot;multilevel&quot;}" data-aria-posinset="2" data-aria-level="1">Advancing poverty reduction with our partners and revising the Thriving for All plan with the City of Trail. </li>
</ul>
<ul>
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</ul>
With support from donors and local businesses, we raised over $22,000 during Coldest Night of the Year for poverty reduction programming. We also renewed our CARF accreditation – confirming that we continue to offer high quality programs and services.  
We’re proud to invest in Trail and the Kootenay region through programs that help build skills, careers and stronger communities. 
Check out our <a href="https://partners.blackbean.marketing/skillscentre/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/CIR-2025.pdf">full report here</a> and connect with us on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/TheSkillsCentre/">Facebook</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/theskillscentre/">Instagram</a>, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/theskillscentre">LinkedIn </a>and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@TrailSkillsCentre">YouTube</a>. 
Here’s to a resilient, inclusive, and prosperous future – together. 
&nbsp;

Celebrating Impact, Growth & Community: Our 2024/2025 Year in Review

Lettuce celebrate! We have an exciting new offering for the community… the community kitchen is now an Interior Health certified food premises. Food premises are places where food intended for the public is sold, offered for sale, supplied, handled, prepared, packaged, displayed, served, processed, stored, transported or dispensed.
Not only do we now have a place to offer great food security programs like <a href="https://skillscentre.ca/how-we-help/poverty-reduction">Roots to Table</a>, the kitchen is equipped to support a wide range of community needs.
What does that mean for you?
<ul>
<li>Host your own cooking classes? Check</li>
<li>Cater an event? Check (even better – cater an event held in one of the Skills Centre’s meeting rooms!)</li>
<li>Make items to be sold at the farmer’s market? Check</li>
<li>Preserve the produce from your garden or food rescue group? Check</li>
<li>… And whatever else you can think of!</li>
</ul>
It doesn’t matter if you are a nonprofit, individual, small business or other group – the community kitchen is available for all to use to support your food needs. The user fee is based on a sliding scale, while still being deliciously affordable of course!
You’ll find the community kitchen is generously stocked with:
<ul>
<li>Large appliances (fridge, freezer, oven, range, dishwasher, freeze dryer, and commercial dehydrator)</li>
<li>Small appliances (KitchenAid mixer, food processor, immersion blender, microwave, hand mixer, and more)</li>
<li>Cutlery and dinnerware for 20 people</li>
<li>Bakeware, utensils, tools and gadgets for all your food prep needs!</li>
</ul>
The creation of the community kitchen was generously supported by funders and donors including the Le Roi Community Foundation, Italo Canadese Society, Columbia Basin Trust, United Way BC, Benedict&#8217;s Steakhouse &amp; Tunnel Pub and many individual community members. We can’t thank them enough, and we are extremely excited to see all the ways the kitchen can support the community now and in the future.
The kitchen is ready, so don’t be chicken – come check it out!

Get ready to get cookin' - the community kitchen is open for business! 

Rick Hansen Foundation Accessibility Certification: Accessibility is both a journey and a destination. 
This week we received notification that the Skills Centre has retained and improved our Rick Hansen Foundation Accessibility Certification (RHFAC) for our new building. This is a wonderful achievement and an opportunity to share how important we believe that accessibility and inclusion is to our staff, our clients and to the community. We are thrilled to have substantially increased our accessibility score to 74%, a little short of gold standard.
In the early days – before we’d even completed the purchase of our building &#8211; we started thinking about who would use the building, what services would be available and what we needed to do in order to ensure that everyone, no matter what their accessibility needs were, is able to access the services and supports they needed in our building. Talking to our clients and the community and thinking about how to translate their needs into the building changed the way that we all thought about the building design.
We were first introduced to accessibility certification in 2018, where RHFAC was included as an organizational prerequisite in a government funding application. When we applied for our first certification in 2019, we achieved the minimum requirements for RHF Accessibility Certification in our rental space. But we knew that we could – and should – do better. So, when we bought our building we wanted to know what we could do that would ensure the best level of accessibility in our new home.
We designed a building that is open and with wide hallways and doorways to accommodate wheelchairs, strollers and other assistive devices. We installed accessible and non-gendered bathrooms. Directional signage, braille and raised letter signage is the standard for finding your way around. The flooring is non-slip and emergency exits and stairs are all equipped with evacuation chairs. We installed an elevator that allows easy passage from the basement to the roof deck and upgraded and changed the furniture.
In the end we fell a little short and didn’t quite meet the goal of meeting the requirements for Gold Standard certification. But we learned a lot along the way. The first is that the RHF offers a pre-construction certification. This allows <a href="https://registry.rickhansen.com/professionals/">specially trained professionals</a> to review building designs and suggest areas where accessibility requirements can be improved. By the time we knew about this, we were already in the middle of construction and although we were able to make some changes, we had made some errors that we could not correct. While we added a lot of accessibility measures, there are things that we missed and will correct over the next couple of years.
But the most important lesson that we have learned is that providing a fully accessible workplace is a journey that starts with being open to new ideas and learning what barriers there are in our ordinary and everyday built environment. This can be as simple as changing the way that a door opens or a handle works. It can mean changes to the flooring that you choose, or the side of the tank where you mount your toilet flush (or better still a touchless flush). But the most important thing to remember is that none of these choices compromise the overall esthetic of the building and instead will almost always enhance the finished product.
We now have a list of the changes that we can make to our building over the next couple of years to help us get to gold because that is still our goal. It’ll start with installing a hearing loop at the front desk and in our meeting rooms. Over the next couple of years, we’ll tackle the other changes that we think we can make so that the next time our building is evaluated we can meet – and exceed – the Rick Hansen Foundation Gold standard certification score.

Skills Centre receives Rick Hansen Foundation Accessibility Certification

Are resumes changing? Have job searches changed in the past few years? In many cases, the answer is yes. Three years ago we shared <a href="https://skillscentre.ca/resources/news/view/10-resume-tips-to-help-you-succeed">10 tips for resumes</a>, and, just like our resumes, it’s time we updated it.
While those tips are still valuable, here’s what we’ve noticed has changed in the job search.
Who is looking at your resume has changed. Larger companies may be using artificial intelligence (AI) to review applications. That means they are scanning for key words from the job application. Does your resume include those key words?
Small businesses are probably not using AI, yet they are still scanning for the key words and key skills. That’s why we encourage you to tailor your resume to the job posting.
Do not rely on artificial intelligence when writing your resume or your cover letter. These documents need to show you at your best, and AI doesn’t really know you, does it?
You are the master
Have a master resume where you list all your skills, experience, accomplishments, and certifications. Add new skills, training and experience to the master list as you get them to keep the master list always up to date.
Then cut and paste from this master list to tailor the resume you use for each job application.
For example, maybe you have very diverse work experiences in three different industries. Highlight the experiences that are relevant to the job you are applying for and don’t necessarily include the experiences that are not related. If you have transferable skills from a different industry, though, include those.
Remember that employers typically look at resumes for 10-15 seconds before making a decision to learn more about or pass on a candidate. Make sure your best qualities are caught in that 10-15 second glance.
Format
Here’s where we find different perspectives even among our staff. That’s because there is no one way to write your resume, and we each have our preferences.
The more traditional, easier formatting of headings and bullets has its advantages.
<ul>
<li>Less formatting is easier for people with less computer experience.</li>
<li>It’s easier to cut and paste and revise sections for different job applications.</li>
<li>And have you applied online for a job and you need to copy your resume into a text box that doesn’t allow any fancy formatting? These are becoming more common, so the less you have to adjust your resume to copy and paste into an online application saves you time and energy.</li>
</ul>
Then there’s the block format, which looks really nice and has its advantages as well.
<ul>
<li>You have blocks down one side where you can highlight certifications or education or soft skills or particular experience. This makes it eye-catching and easy to read for the person reviewing your resume.</li>
<li>This also means the main box where you list your work experience or training is smaller, which is better for people with less experience because there isn’t a big blank space to fill.</li>
</ul>
Drawbacks to the block style include:
<ul>
<li>They don’t copy and paste easily into online application forms.</li>
<li>As you change info in the blocks, it may shift the formatting of the whole document.</li>
</ul>
White space is still crucial no matter which layout you choose. Do not make the information too dense.
Adjust as needed
There are many other formats. Find the one that works for you. Search resumes for the type of job you are applying for to see examples that might help you design your resume.
<ul>
<li>For example, if you’re applying for an admin assistant job, search admin assistant resumes to see what’s out there. See if anything resonates with you.</li>
<li>We find things we don’t like just as often as we find things we do, and that can also help you write your resume.</li>
</ul>
You want people to be able to read your resume quickly and find the key information they are looking for quickly. You also do not want to spend hours adjusting your resume each time you apply for a job, so pick a format that works easily for you.
Our goal in resume writing is to help you help yourself. We want you to be able to build a resume and update it on your own quickly and easily. There is no perfect resume, so have some fun with it. Tell your story in it. Your story keeps evolving, and so should your resume.

Celebrating Impact, Growth & Community: Our 2024/2025 Year in Review

Recent Posts

Get ready to get cookin' - the community kitchen is open for business!

Skills Centre receives Rick Hansen Foundation Accessibility Certification

Resume Tips for 2025