VOTE FOR CHRIS BLIN
LET'S BUILD
GUERNSEY
BETTER.
ABOUT ME
I am a businessman and social entrepreneur and have spent the vast majority of my life in Guernsey. I have two boys of whom I’m immensely proud and I live in St Peter Port.
I was educated at Notre Dame, Elizabeth College and a number of schools internationally. This gave me a passion for languages and travel. I am fluent in French and Spanish and a qualified language teacher. I gained a degree in Languages and Economics from Bristol (UWE).
I returned to Guernsey and started work with one of the big four accountancy firms, then moved into the fiduciary sector. But I wanted to start my own business in something I love, languages, and that’s when I founded Accent Language School. For twenty years the business taught European languages to locals and Guernsey’s business sector. We brought over hundreds of European students every year to learn English and integrate with local families. I sold that business and now run Accent Multilingual Services, which specialises in translation and interpreting, and the recruitment agencies Personnel Appointments and Caterquest.
Besides operating these agencies, I have helped businesses find investors and I have helped bring companies to Guernsey, creating opportunities for the local economy. Over the past decade I personally have established, invested in and supported a range of commercial and financial businesses. Not everything I have done has been a success and a hospitality business didn’t succeed. But this taught me valuable lessons and has given me a better understanding of the issues facing business.
VOTE FOR CHRIS BLIN AND I WILL:
STRENGTHEN OUR
ECONOMY
Strengthen & diversify our economy & support our finance industry
CHAMPION SMALL
BUSINESSES
Champion small businesses, hospitality & tourism
VOTE AGAINST
GST
Vote against GST & any additional taxes this term
DEVELOP RENEWABLE
ENERGY
Push for Guernsey to develop a renewable energy sector
THREE SCHOOL
EDUCATION
Support a three school model of education with a 6th Form Centre
LOCAL GUERNSEY
PRODUCE
Encourage and support vegetable producers because local is best
I believe strongly in giving back to the community that supports our island
COMMUNITY
ROLES
I believe strongly in giving back to the community that supports our island. I was a St Peter Port Douzenier between 2016 and 2019 and during that time dealt with a range of parochial matters.
I won the tender to work with Social Security at the Job Centre on a five year contract. I led a team that engaged with jobseekers to get them back to work. We also involved local employers to encourage them to meet with our jobseekers. This resulted in positive outcomes for both parties. During this period I established initiatives like job fairs and begun an island wide coaching scheme MOE moefoundation.com. This initiative was supported by Social Security and proved to be incredibly successful. It is still going strong and is bringing about real positive change for local people. I look back on this project fondly because although it was challenging, it was immensely rewarding.
I was an active member of the Guernsey Round Table for fifteen years and also a member of the Catenians, a Catholic fellowship dedicated to charity and helping others. For six years I was immensely proud to serve as an Observer with Channel Islands Air Search.
UNTIL THE ELECTION
WHY VOTE FOR CHRIS BLIN?
I want to be a deputy because I believe that Guernsey can be better and stronger. The past States has been wasteful and indecisive and it is your money they are playing with. Look at the education debacle. It sends out the wrong message to our community and to the wider world. There was insufficient consultation with parents and teachers and government flip flopped on key decisions. This must stop. We must have a well thought out, progressive agenda, bring the right policies forward and act on them.
This political term we will have to build afresh from the economic effects of Covid and this is why I am putting economic success at the heart of my manifesto. Our key economic driver is our finance industry and I will do all I can to strengthen and support it. The world is changing which is why it needs the maximum support possible.
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But we also need economic diversity. Going forward, I want government to prioritise a vibrant tourist and hospitality sector. This has been left to its own devices for too long and Visit Guernsey has failed as a government marketing agency. We must make the most of our military heritage and our association with Victor Hugo. Both are unique tourism selling points.
Small and medium sized businesses are the backbone of our economy and I want government to remove the barriers that stifle their growth. I have been involved in this sector all of my working life.
I want the current government tender process changed so that it focuses on selecting island businesses to deliver public sector contracts. Where this is not possible there should be the opportunity to create joint ventures between UK and local firms to ensure that in the future Guernsey companies are better prepared to get States contracts.
I want major investment in our infrastructure as an economic driver and I advocate public private partnerships to do this. This model can also enable the renewable energy sector I believe we need. We have the wind, the sea and the sun but the States have failed to act and we lag behind so many countries on this. Now is the time to develop renewable energy to give us more independence and resilience.
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Guernsey is a beautiful, quiet place and I feel lucky to live here. But I would like one element to change and that centres around the very small minority of motorcyclists and moped riders who negatively affect our tranquil island life. It is not acceptable for them to create unnecessary noise by revving their engines and screaming around our roads. My concern centres around the 50-125 CC bikes and mopeds, those that don’t have exhaust baffles; as I say, a tiny minority. The vast majority of Guernsey’s biker community are sensible and responsible. I want the Police to be proactive and issue notices that force this minority with noisy exhausts to get them fixed and remind them of their obligation to ride with consideration to others.
Thank you for reading this and I hope you will consider voting for Chris Blin in this October’s election.