HELLO
Happy Halloween! We hope you've carved your pumpkin, hung up your spooky decs, and got lots of sweeties in for the trick-or-treaters. We took a break from carving our middle-class horror pumpkin (It says 'Waitrose has run out of hummus') to bring you today's newsletter.
There's nothing spooky about it, just tons of help and inspiration for your career break, including new projects, free stuff, pics, news and all manner of useful what-have-you. There are some new sections in this newsletter too, so read on and see if you can spot them!
SPONSORED FEATURE - VSO NEEDS IT PROFESSIONALS
VSO is a leading development organisation that tackles poverty through volunteering. Volunteers work with local partners to develop and improve health and education services, opportunities to earn a living and to give poor people a voice.
They urgently need IT professionals to volunteer in Myanmar, Papua New Guinea and Ethiopia. The roles vary but you will need experience. You'll receive an allowance, plus flights, accommodation and insurance.
Find out more and apply here.
FREE STUFF ROUND-UP
Free ebook - Costa Rica Travel Tips from our friends at MyTanFeet.
**EXCLUSIVE** Free guide to housesititing - 51 pages telling you how to save up to £35,000 on accommodation costs. We've featured this before but we're featuring it again as it's so good!
Free coffee - it's Kenco Millicano but still, it'll get you through a cold morning at work.
There are more offers on our blog this month too - one for free shipping on backpacker cooking kits, and a teacher-traveller kit giveaway.
**NEW PAGE ON THE SITE**
We've now got a whole page of free stuff and offers on the site, for the longer-lasting freebies and discounts that we find. Temporary offers and new free stuff will still be in this newsletter though.
We've also updated our Work for us and Advertise with us pages.
EVENT
Projects Abroad have regular events where you can find out more about volunteering with them. The next is in London on Wednesday 26th November at 7pm and the one after in Edinburgh on Saturday 10th January from 10am. Click here for more details and to book a place. They're free!
COMPETITION - WIN £500 OF FREE MONEY!
Our mates at FairFX (who do prepaid travel money cards) are offering £500 to the winner of their new video blogger competition! All you have to do is make a video blog featuring the destination of your choice and hope you win! Click here for more information and to enter.
NEW AND UPDATED CAREER BREAKS
Here are all our new and updated career breaks - we've got quite a lot of new ones this month, so do go and have a look.
PHOTO CORNER - YOUR MONTHLY DOSE OF INSPIRATION
The Urban Photographer of the Year awards have just been announced, and there's some amazing stuff in the winners' gallery. This year's theme was all about people working.
The Wildlife Photographer of the Year awards have also been announced and as you might expect, there are some stonking pictures of animals in it!
VIDEO CORNER
A video to change people's perceptions of India - we must admit, this opened our eyes a fair bit!
And if the wildlife pics above didn't provide you with enough animals this month, here's a video of baby sea turtles being released. Yes, of course they're cute!
ON THE BLOG
Our very first review! We were asked to review a Tripkits pack which is a kit for volunteer teachers abroad. Read about it here and see how to win one for yourself.
Another first - a recipe! This is a guest recipe from The Backpacker Chef, plus there's an offer on the post for free shipping if you want one of her backpacker kitchen kits.
Our infographic this month is on living and working in Dubai - useful for any of you thinking about scoring a lucrative job out there!
Finally, we updated the Expected Conduct of a Teacher document we posted last month, so there's now a text transcription below it.
All these, and the rest of our blog posts, can be found here: http://www.thecareerbreaksite.com/blog.
ELSEWHERE ON THE INTERWEB
Our site founder is extensively quoted in this article on how to ask your boss for a career break, on the Essential Travel website. It's a really comprehensive article and a must-read for anyone who's thinking of taking a sabbatical.
TIP OF THE MONTH
Always pack pens and paper. Yes, it's old school but it's quick, you can leave a note for someone, and they never need recharging.
QUESTION OF THE MONTH - IT'S BACK!!
Someone emailed us asking if they had a right to a sabbatical after a year. We replied saying that no-one has the 'right' to a sabbatical, but you can check your employment contract or with HR to see if your company has a policy on this. It's usually 2 years though.
USEFUL THING OF THE MONTH
Not just one this month, but a hundred! Someone has very kindly rounded up 100 websites that anyone might find useful. The list is here.
JOKE
Why did the camping enthusiast get arrested?
For loitering within tent.
FINALLY
If you sent us an email recently, we're sorry but it vanished into the ether. The magic pixies have fixed our email now though, so if there's anything you want to tell us, just drop us a line. We'll reply just as soon as we've drunk enough coffee to enable us to fromm a intelligent sentences.
Thanks for reading, enjoy Halloween and Bonfire Night, and we'll see you next month.
The Career Break Site
xxx