East Region News
Celebrating inspirational women at the Pat Midgley Community Hub
A fantastic community event was held at the Pat Midgley Community Hub in Wybourn to mark International Women’s Day. Centre co-ordinator Christina Grant had her hands full organising the buffet of cakes, sandwiches and snacks as well as a range of activities.
Our customer Lydia set up an arts and crafts station, where attendees could design and create small jewellery boxes for the perfect Mother’s Day gift. At another end of the room, another creative resident designed everyone’s henna. We worked in partnership with Manor Castle Development Trust (MCDT), and their fitness instructor Kellyanne Sharman attended to offer free checks on weight and blood pressure for those who found this helpful.
There was a fantastic turnout, including many of our customers and other residents of Wybourn of all ages, with lots of them regularly attending weekly events at the centre. One customer who attended for the first time for the event commented that it’s “a lovely community centre to get involved in”.
What’s more, Sheffield City Council’s Chief Executive Kate Joseph, and Cllrs Sioned Richards and Laura Moynahan were invited to the event and got stuck in making arts and crafts boxes. This was Kate’s first time visiting the Pat Midgley Community Hub, and what a better way to be introduced as female leaders on International Women’s Day.
On display were information posters of exceptional women including Greta Thunberg, Michelle Obama and the late Councillor, Pat Midgley – who the centre is named after for her lifetime’s dedication to making this area of Sheffield she called home a better place. This made the day truly inspirational.
A special moment was when Christina reminded everyone of why we have International Women’s Day. Timing nicely with Mother’s Day being round the corner, things were rounded up with a shared display for attendees to contribute to and credit the women in their own lives who inspire them. This was a lovely round-up to International Women’s Day, to equally appreciate the exceptional and the everyday women who make a difference to our lives.
Christina Grant said: “It was great to work in partnership with MCDT to put together this community event to celebrate International Women’s Day, and the afternoon was a success! Residents who attended spoke to me about how much they enjoyed the atmosphere; it was a lovely, relaxed occasion where everyone came together to reflect on the women who inspire all of us – and it was great to see Cllrs Moynahan, Richards and Josephs enjoying themselves too.”
A spotlight on Weavers Court
Weavers Court is one of our sheltered living schemes, situated in the market town of Penistone, Barnsley. Whilst it’s tucked away in the countryside, it’s fully integrated into the local community since it opened back in 1993, and our customers feel at home there.
Supporting over-55-year-olds as well as some customers with disabilities, the scheme is designed to feel inviting and to encourage independent living. With 30 bedrooms, each customer lives in their own flat, with daily welfare checks, and they regularly come together in the communal space to enjoy each other’s company in the evenings. As manager Tracy Sharrat says, the place almost feels like a hotel – and sure enough families and friends do stay over on visits, making use of the ensuite guest bedroom.
For residents, the days are action-packed. Each week is filled by a busy activities schedule, from bingo on Mondays to coffee and cake on Sundays, with craft afternoons and trips out in-between. Customers also look forward to live entertainment every other Friday afternoon from local groups, choirs and organisations such as Age UK who frequently hold community events there.
But the highlight of the Weavers Court calendar is the parties, especially the Christmas party. The proceeds from bingo mornings throughout the year go towards the food and provisions, making the event one to remember.
iPads at Breakfast Club
Over in Richmond Park, we recently granted Athelstan Primary School £4,000 through our Community Resilience Fund (CRF), which has been used by the school to provide iPads for pupils with less access to these at home, to share and engage with online learning tools at school.
Our CRF provides grants to charities, community groups and social enterprises which are generously donated by our partners as well as Great Places.
As the world becomes more and more digital, school is no different, and online learning platforms such as Times-table Rockstars have proved to be a great way for children to learn important subjects like maths, English and science.
Unfortunately, access to these online platforms at home was uneven among the pupils of Athelstan Primary. Whilst the school had a supply of iPads to lend out, these were always in use and the demand was always higher.
That’s where the idea of making use of both the funding from Great Places and the school’s Breakfast Club came in. Our funding has been used to purchase twelve new iPads as well as an iPad secure charging trolley to be used at the Breakfast Clubs, so that Athelstan Primary can meet its higher demand. This enables the children to access the platforms five hours per week beyond the usual school hours, and truly makes a difference with ensuring that they do not fall behind.
Zoe Godwin, Business Manager at Athelstan Primary School, had this to say on the funding:
“The funding we have received from Great Places is going to be an enormous support for our pupils attending Breakfast Club. We can offer more learning time to targeted pupils to increase engagement and improve their outcomes and confidence. It has been really great meeting and working with Great Places, who have been an excellent support – thank you!”
Jumping into the world of work
Our customer, Matthew Freeman, is 20 and lives with his mother and younger brother in Wybourn, Sheffield. The family rent a general needs home with us, and having finished college a couple of years ago, Matthew had been trying to find work.
Our Employability Coach Joanne Miller heard about Matthew’s situation whilst working with his younger brother to secure a place at college, and so offered to work with Matthew as well. The pair got to work in January this year.
Matthew’s childhood dream was to work in construction. He had completed his level 1 bricklaying course whilst in college, however he still needed to pass his Health and Safety and CSCS test. With our new development at London Road, Sheffield, being underway at the time, Joanne took the opportunity to enquire with the construction team, Beluga, onsite. Their CEO was encouraging and put Joanne in contact with a member of the team, John, who agreed to give Matthew an interview. Joanne helped Matthew prepare for this, and, provided he would get his CSCS card, he was successful!
With the end-point more or less secured, Joanne and Matthew turned their attention to gaining those qualifications. Initially, Joanne used funding from our Employability offer to enrol Matthew on an online course – however this proved to be an ill fit with Matthew’s learning needs, so, they changed tactics and found a classroom-based course through Sector Routeways. This was much more suitable, and the tutors were really supportive of Matthew’s learning needs. Matthew passed both tests at the end of March.
Matthew finally began working with Beluga in early April. He’s delighted to be working full time, and especially in construction, an area which he loves, and had this to say:
‘I’m so pleased to have gained this support from Joanne as I would most likely still be unemployed and bored at home otherwise! I’ve wanted to work in construction since childhood, but it’s been a stop-start journey for a number of years. The support I’ve had from Joanne, Sector Routeways and John at Beluga has been amazing and I’m loving my job - it’s going really well! I’m able to help my mum and am already managing to save money for my future plans to learn to drive.’
“I’ve wanted to work in construction since childhood, but it’s been a stop-start journey for a number of years. The support I’ve had from Joanne, Sector Routeways and John at Beluga has been amazing and I’m loving my job - it’s going really well!”
Repairs update East
Your latest repairs update from your Head of Property Services.
Your repairs service has been busy over the last year delivering 6,745 repairs to help maintain your homes.
One big area of ongoing development this year has been in relation to addressing concerns around damp, mould and condensation for our customers. This has included creating a separate policy, alongside improved communications and support around managing moisture levels within your home.
We have also invested in additional resources to deal with any appearance of damp and mould within a property to provide peace of mind and to address any underlying property issues which may be contributing to the issue.
In addition, all your local managers and supervisors have received further training in relation to identification of underlying causes and all our operatives have received specific awareness training to provide further support to our customers whilst they are undertaking general repairs.
We have also been improving our service offer with operatives now able to book convenient follow up appointments directly with the customer whilst they are at the property. In addition, customers are now able to book appointments 24 hours a day, seven days a week within the customer portal. Both of these initiatives have been delivered to enhance the service for you, our customers.
These service improvements have been supported by the further development of your localised resource planning team to ensure that customers receive the best possible experience when a repair is being undertaken in their home, even when it can sometimes be quite complicated.
We have also been working closely with our Assets Team to identify local areas that require planned investment.
As a developing organisation we have a continual challenge to ensure we have sufficient resources to meet the increasing demands and we continue to invest in our award winning apprenticeship programme to ensure we continue to build for the future and have employed a number of local people to meet this aim.
These ongoing improvements have led to the team receiving 141 compliments and 42 five star Trust Pilot reviews during the year which have been gratefully received.
As your local team, we are committed to reducing our wait time for our customers, and reviewing our productivity for our team of operatives to ensure customers get the best possible service. We are dedicated to delivering excellent customer service, and always looking for further ways to improve.
How we’re doing at a glance
During the financial year 2023/24, the Great Places repairs team for East region achieved the following:
- Customer satisfaction: The average transactional customer satisfaction rating for the East region was 9 out of 10.
- Timeliness: 91% of repairs were completed within target time frames.
- First-visit fixes: 88% of all repairs were successfully completed during the first visit.
- Empty properties: 180 empty homes were prepared for new customers, with an average turnaround time of 17 days.