During our Beacon year we will be attending lots of events to promote Bolton at Home and the Beacon scheme. This section will be updated regularly with news of our Beacon activities. Click on the links below for more details.
Be Involved Beacon Conference,
November 2006
Carrick Housing Beacon Open Day,
November 2006
CIH Neighbourhood Management
Seminar, September 2006
TPAS TP and Community
Development workers conference, September 2006
TPAS Annual Conference, August 2006
NHC Resident Involvement conference, August 2006
Housing 2006, Harrogate, June 2006
Learning Exchange, June 2006
TPAS National Youth Conference, June 2006
National Housing Week Launch, May 2006
Visits from other organisations
Over 150 delegates attended our first Beacon event at the Reebok Stadium.
Feedback has been very positive and we have had lots of requests for further
information about Bolton at Home.
We experienced a great demand for places and the event was fully booked
weeks in advance. We are considering running a similar event 2007 so watch
this space for more news.
Once again we repeated our successful ‘Wheel or No Wheel’ workshop at our
Beacon partners open day in Falmouth. The workshop was facilitated by Ann
Brooks, Customer Involvement Officer, Ruth Anderson, Beacon Co-ordinator and
Shaun Clydesdale, Social Inclusion Manager.
A mix up by the courier firm (no names mentioned) meant that the equipment
did not turn up on time and one box didn’t turn up at all. We made the best
of what we had and improvised our way through the workshop. Despite the
hiccups that we experienced, the workshop actually went down very well and
people seemed very entertained by our efforts!
Bolton at Home recently featured at a Chartered Institute of Housing
seminar on Neighbourhood Management in Manchester. Shaun Clydesdale, Social
Inclusion Manager, spoke to delegates about successful regeneration through
community consultation covering initiatives such as Neighbourhood Planning,
Local Community Planning, Neighbourhood Profiles and Green Inspectors.
There were around 50 delegates at the event and a lot of these were very
interested in finding out more about Bolton at Home’s approach to involving
customers in regeneration.
We repeated our successful ‘Wheel or No Wheel’ workshop at the TPAS TP
and Community Development workers conference in Watford. This time the
workshop was facilitated by Ann Brooks, Customer Involvement Officer, Ruth
Anderson, Beacon Co-ordinator and Shaun Clydesdale, Social Inclusion
Manager.
For this event, we had a cross tenure slant on the workshop to reflect that
Bolton at Home is responsible for private sector regeneration as well as
managing council properties on behalf of Bolton Council. We also try to
ensure that the majority of ways to get involved can apply to residents of
any tenure not just council tenants. We feel this is important as our
neighbourhoods and estates are made up of residents from all tenures and
Bolton at Home services do not affect only council tenants.
Again, the workshop went down extremely well with delegates and we have been
approached by an officer from Nuneaton and Bedworth Council to run a
workshop at their tenants’ conference in April 2007.
Officers from Bolton at Home facilitated a successful workshop at the
annual TPAS conference in Birmingham in August. The workshop, entitled
‘Wheel or No Wheel’ was run by Mark Turnbull, Neighbourhood Services
Co-ordinator who was assisted by Carole Fearnley, a customer from Tonge
Neighbourhood Panel and Eastfield Residents Association and Rose Swiatek,
Customer Involvement Officer. The workshop is loosely based around a popular
TV game show and showcases our Customer involvement Wheel and the different
ways to get involved. We received excellent feedback from delegates who
attended the workshop and intend to run it again in the future.
We also had an exhibition stand at the conference with our Beacon partners,
Carrick, Croydon and Kirklees. There were over 800 delegates at the
conference so this was a great opportunity for the Beacons to meet
likeminded people from all over the country.
Staff from Bolton at Home attended the NHC Resident Involvement Conference in Blackpool on 27-28 June. We promoted Bolton at Home with a display stand and spoke to lots of delegates about the Beacon Scheme and Customer Involvement. The interest we had was amazing – we ran out of information packs on the first day before lunch had even started!
We recently represented the Beacon Scheme and Bolton at Home on the Department for Communities and Local Government stand at the CIH Housing 2006 Conference (20-23 June). Ruth Anderson, Beacon Co-ordinator and Sharon Ellis, Customer Involvement Team Leader briefly met Ruth Kelly, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government and also MP for Bolton West, who was delivering a keynote speech at the conference. They spoke to delegates about the Beacon Scheme and Customer Involvement and our ‘Be Involved’: Creating Great Communities DVD was also shown on the stand.
On the 14 June 2006, we
contributed to the IDeA Beacon Learning Exchange for our theme ‘Improving
Housing Services by Involving tenants’ held in London. The event started
with speeches from keynote speakers Nick Raynsford MP and Phil Morgan, Chief
Executive of TPAS. Following this, all the Beacons in our theme gave a
speech about why we have been awarded Beacon status. Shaun Clydesdale,
Social Inclusion Manager and Eunice Rowley, BATRA member and Chair of the
Customer Involvement Sub-Group spoke on behalf of Bolton at Home.
Mark Turnbull, Neighbourhood Services Co-ordinator, ran an extremely well
received workshop entitled ‘People Improving Places’ about Green Inspectors
and the Service Level Agreement for environmental services. He was assisted
by Joan Horan, Green Inspector and BATRA member and Deborah Newby,
Neighbourhood Project Officer. Carol Smith from Kirklees Neighbourhood
Housing also contributed to the workshop, talking about regeneration of a
problem estate. Eunice Rowley also spoke about Customer Inspectors and her
role as Chair of Customer Involvement Sub-Group in Carrick Housing’s
workshop entitled Tenants Taking the Lead’. We also had a display and staff
available to speak to delegates about our work.
Overall we felt the event went really well and was a good launching pad for
our Beacon year. We had lots of interest in Customer Involvement and made
lots of contacts who will hopefully be useful in future.
Two members of staff from our
Customer Involvement Team attended the TPAS National Youth Conference which
was held on 2-4 June 2006 in Sheffield. Ruth Anderson, Beacon Co-ordinator
and Helen Grailey, Customer Involvement Officer took eleven young people
from the Wellfield Project in Deane to participate in the conference. They
also facilitated an icebreaker session for around 70 young people to start
the conference.
Everyone involved really enjoyed the experience and Ruth and Helen have made
some really useful contacts for further Beacon and Customer Involvement
work.
Representatives from Bolton at
Home recently spoke about our successful and innovative approach to an
audience of government ministers and key housing professionals at the launch
of National Housing Week at Westminster (22 May 2006). One of our
representatives included Eunice Rowley, BATRA member and Chair of the
Customer Involvement Sub-Group.
The event was attended by approximately 40 people including Yvette Cooper,
Housing Minister, other housing organisations, MPs and the media.
During our Beacon year we have been visited by several organisations wanting to find out about Customer Involvement. Some organisations came to Bolton to discuss a variety of aspects of Bolton at Home’s work including Blythe Valley Housing, Blackpool Council and Salford Council. Some organisations specifically came to find out about Customer Involvement.
Officers from Chester visited us on the 28 September 2006 for presentations and discussions with staff and a customer regarding Customer Involvement and Customer Inspectors.
Officers from the North East ALMO (Arms Length Management Organisation)
Involvement Benchmarking club visited us on 20 September 2006 to find out
about Customer Involvement in Bolton.
A total of 11 officers from 8 organisations were given presentations and had
discussions with staff and customers regarding Customer Involvement,
Neighbourhood Planning, Customer Inspectors, Great Estates and Housing
Percent for Art, including a visit to Lower Deane Housing Office at Pikes
Lane.
Each visiting organisation also gave a brief presentation on their good
practice.
Three officers from Preston Community Gateway Association visited us on
the 26 July 2006 for a best practice sharing event.
This involved presentations and discussions with staff and customers
regarding Customer Involvement, Neighbourhood Planning, Customer Inspectors,
Great Estates and Housing Percent for Art, including a visit to Lower Deane
Housing Office at Pikes Lane.
If you would like to find out more please contact:
Maria Marsden
Bolton at Home
1-3 The Courtyard
Calvin Street
Bolton
BL1 8PB
Tel: 01204 335706
Fax: 01204 335662
Email:
beacon@boltonathome.org.uk
