Lesley Griffiths, Deputy Minister for Science, Innovation and Skills, whose portfolio includes the apprenticeship programme in Wales, made these comments after a visit to the Airbus Broughton facility.

She was accompanied by Brian Fleet who rose through the ranks from an engineering apprentice to become UK Senior Vice President and Head of the Centre of Excellence for Wing and Pylon at Airbus.

Thirty business people attended including representatives of Toyota UK, UPM Kymmene, West Coast Energy, KK Fine Foods, Northop Hall Country House Hotel, Deeside College, Glyndwr University, Careers Wales, FSB, Tourism Partnership, Mace & Jones, DSG, DTM legal, and other Flintshire businesses.

The events also saw the launch of leaflets for both the new Car Share Scheme and "How to get to Deeside Industrial Park" guide.

Several large businesses from DIP attended including Iceland, Henrob, Dailycer and Mainetti. The events were free and gave information to businesses on providing employees with additional transport options.

Librarians from Estyn Allan y Gogledd, the reader development network, have chosen twelve books, all from Wales but which take the reader to many different places. The authors of the most popular books in English and in Welsh will be presented with an Aur Pur award designed locally.

Flintshire County Council has just released its revised draft waste strategy. The strategy sets out how we intend to meet targets for recycling and disposing of your waste over the next 15 years.

The strategy is in response to a number of policy and regulatory changes at both national and European level that requires waste to be handled in a more sustainable manner. The Council recognises that municipal waste management is changing rapidly and that it's role is now much more than simply 'collecting' and 'disposing' of waste.

Environment Agency Wales; Flintshire County Council's Environmental Crime Team; North Wales Arson Reduction Team and North Wales Police.

Advice was given to businesses on pollution prevention, reducing arson and checking waste to meet legislation.

Flintshire County Council's Environmental Crime team carried out checks to ensure that the businesses had proper waste management contracts in place to properly dispose of their waste and reduce illegal dumping.

In recent years, the l Health Challenge Flintshire group has hosted annual events to share and celebrate the work of groups and organisations within the county who work to improve the health and well being of others.

In addition, this year, the group (led by the local Director of Public
Health) wants to extend this celebration to include individuals who have taken on their own challenge during 2009 and made significant changes to their lifestyle.

So if you made real changes to your lifestyle during 2009, continue to feel the benefit of these changes and would be happy to share with others what you did and what difference it has made to your health or how you feel, we would love to hear from you.

The First Savers account is for children and young people up to the age of
16 years old. Communities First decided to introduce the scheme to encourage local children to save their money to purchase goods and to teach them good habits that will be with them in adulthood, when some could find themselves attracted to credit cards or worse, to loan sharks.

By taking part in the scheme employees can save an average of 33% off the cost of a bike in tax and NI contributions (depending on individual income tax band).

The Council aims to show the benefits of a Cycle to Work scheme and encourage other employers to offer their staff alternative transport choices and promote cycling as part of a daily active and healthy lifestyle. Employers of all sizes across the public, private and voluntary sectors can implement a tax exempt loan scheme for their employees.