THE NEW ONLINE MAGAZINE FROM SEVERN VALE HOUSING

GOING DIGITALWe are introducing new ways of working and new digital channels

CREATING YOUR HOME Our new scheme that lets customers enter their home before they get the keys

ALSO INSIDE

MARATHON MANRead all about how Ryan hiked two and a half marathons

in two days to raise money for CLIC Sargent(Picture: Ryan and his daughters - three year old Abi on his shoulders and four year old Daisy)

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Welcome to Connect, our brand new digital magazine. This will be uploaded to our website every quarter and will be full of news about our customers and staff.

We’d really like to hear from you with your stories and photos, so if you think you’ve got something we’d like to hear about please contact us (details below).Connect is just one of the changes we are making to the way we communicate with our customers. We are introducing new ways of working and new digital channels. Our new website is now live and a self-service portal will go live in the summer and will be a cost-effective

and more efficient way of staying in touch with residents.

Customers will be able to log onto the portal where they can pay their rent, get rent statements, update their details, read the latest edition of Connect, request repairs and call-backs.

The changes mean our customers will be able to contact us at any time of the day or night, to suit themselves.

We will be communicating the benefits of the digital changes to our customers, making sure they understand the efficiencies this will bring to both them and us.

In future customers will have one point of contact for rent, anti-social behaviour and tenancy changes including mutual exchanges, which are applicable after the first 12 months of a tenancy.

There will be a dedicated administration team which means that Housing Officers will be able to work more efficiently. They will be able to get out of the office more and paperwork will be carried out in a shorter space of time.

We have employed a Grants and Social Value Officer, which means we will be looking for grants to fund community

events, enabling us to invest money back into our communities. We have also taken on a Business Analyst to ensure we use the data we hold intelligently. We will be able to identify where more resources may be required or to help us anticipate how national policy changes will affect us. A new Trainee Housing Officer post has been created which presents an exciting opportunity for someone wishing to start their career in housing. This post helps us build stars of the future and ensures we grow our own future housing officers.

We have also taken on a new Complaints Co-ordinator, who will ensure that we learn from our mistakes so that they do not happen again and we continually improve our services to our customers.We hope you enjoy reading Connect and we look forward to hearing from you with news from where you live.

Tim KnightChief Executive

WELCOME

Please contact us at Connect@svhs.org.uk

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“We are introducing new ways of working and new digital channels. Our new website is now live and a self-service portal will go live in the summer and will be a cost-effective and more efficient way of staying in touch with residents.”

3Get in touch at connect@svhs.org.uk

One-hundred-year-old Eileen Hatfield became Spring Gardens’ oldest resident when she moved into the retirement housing scheme recently.

Mrs Hatfield, who has two children, five grandchildren and three great grandchildren, moved into the retirement scheme off Chance Street, Tewkesbury after previously living in the Almshouses in Cotswold Road in the town.

Apart from twenty years spent in Coventry, Mrs Hatfield has spent her entire life in Tewkesbury. She was born in Greville Walk.

Mrs Hatfield said: “You’re never too old to move. The stairs in the Almshouses were getting too much for me so I am delighted to be here. I am really starting to settle in now. The flat is nice and light and I have started to get my pictures up on the walls.

“My son and daughter-in-law are able to visit me several times a week as I have been able to stay local and they can still take me to the hairdressers every week, which is lovely”.

Spring Gardens was built in 1961 and it is made up of twelve one-bedroom apartments, two, two-bedroom bungalows and four bedsits.

Scheme Manager Janice Westray, who has worked at Spring Gardens for over twenty years said: “Mrs Hatfield is living proof that you are never too old to move. The accommodation we have been able to provide is far more suitable for her needs and we are delighted she has been able to remain local so she can continue to enjoy the company of her family”.

WHAT'S NEW?

Ryan’s raising funds for CLIC Sargent

One hundred year old Eileen moves in

Our Rent and Service Charges Manager Ryan Barkle, 34, has hiked two and a half marathons in two days. He hiked around the Isle of Wight coastal path with this brother Matthew and father Anthony, to raise money for the children’s cancer charity CLIC Sargent.

Ryan’s three year old daughter Abi was diagnosed with an ultra-rare form of Leukaemia last year and the family decided to do something to raise funds for a children’s cancer charity. Severn Vale Housing Society sponsored Ryan, as did many of his colleagues and when all the donations are added up he hopes to have raised £5,000.

Ryan Barkle said: “I decided to raise money for CLIC Sargent who provided support to my family after Abi’s Leukaemia diagnosis. They fund nurses to provide treatment at home, social workers and

play specialists. They also have ‘home from homes’ places for families to stay that are close to the main hospitals where treatment is provided. “My dad was about to turn 60 and he was looking for a challenge and my brother wanted to lose weight, so we decided to get in training and take part in the Isle of Wight challenge. We chose the Isle of Wight as the route follows the entire coastal path of the island.”

Donations can still be made at www.justgiving.com/TheBarkleRamblers.

Daddy is my hero

Above (L to R): 3 year old Abi and Dad, Ryan Barkle

One hundred y ears young

Above (L to R): Eileen Hatfield and Scheme Manager, Janice Westray

“You’re never too old to move.”

Eileen Hatfield

“I decided to raise money for CLIC Sargent who provided support to my

family after Abi’s Leukaemia diagnosis.”Ryan Barkle

3Get in touch at connect@svhs.org.uk

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How to: HELP IS AT HAND

We’re making a selection of ‘how to’ videos to help our customers carry out some simple repairs to their properties. These will be posted on YouTube later in the year so be sure to look out for them.

Hints and tips will be given on things like unblocking sinks and toilets, bleeding radiators, resetting the trip switch in a power failure, and locating the fuse box, electricity and gas meters.

Your chance to win a tabletAll you have to do to enter our win a tablet competition is tell us what year our Barton Court retirement scheme opened and email your answer to us at godigital@svhs.org.uk

TERMS AND CONDITIONSBy sending us your email address you agree that we can store your contact details and use them to give you information on marketing and communications.

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We are changing the way we work with our customers by introducing new digital channels.

Working smarter with our customersWe’re upgrading the way we engage with our customers and have introduced a brand new website. This has now gone live and can be viewed by going to www.svhs.org.uk

Later in the year we will have developed the website so it will allow customers to log onto a self-service portal where they will be able pay their rent, upgrade their details, request repairs and ask for call-backs.

The changes mean customers will be able to contact us at any time of the day or night to suit themselves.

Customer and Community Director Fay Shanahan said: “We have been working through our internal transformation programme for over a year now, so we are very excited to see all our hard work starting to pay off. The new system will be far more efficient for our customers to use and will be extremely cost effective. At the click of a button they will be able to access their rent statements and track their repairs.”

5Get in touch at connect@svhs.org.uk

At Easter our senior management team held a charity car wash and raised money for a local rabbit rescue centre which was in great need of help, showing our commitment to fundraising and supporting local charities. The Executive team, who were dressed as rabbits, took part in the activity and over £250 was raised. The money was presented to Windwhistle Warren rescue centre in Westbury-on-Severn. Julie Jones, Deputy Chief Executive and Finance and Development Director said: “We’re keen to increase our fundraising activities to support local charities so we decided to live and breathe our values to be purposeful and creative by showing staff there’s no job too small.

Our staff took part in the Random Acts of Kindness Week in February.

The week, which takes place across the globe, encourages people to indulge in acts of kindness and to commit to being better to other human beings throughout the year.

To start the week off, all staff members were greeted with a bar of chocolate on their desks on Monday morning.

Later in the week Asset and Commercial Director Michael Craggs surprised Alderton tenant John Simmons with a

bunch of flowers and a box of chocolates.

Continuing the surprises, new staff members visited residents at the Spring Gardens retirement scheme in the centre of Tewkesbury and brought cakes along to accompany their regular Thursday coffee morning.

Head of Human Resources Geraldine Allen said: “Taking part in this week is just one of the initiatives we have planned for the year. We value our staff and we also value our residents, so engaging with them and including them in these sort of events shows that we are thoroughly committed to all the people we work with”.

Executives hop to it with Easter charity car wash

Random Acts of Kindness

“We’re currently building on our cultural transformation journey where we make sure we all work together as one team, so offering to clean staff members’ cars was a great place to start. “We’re very pleased that we were able to donate this money to the rescue centre and are already planning our next fundraising activity”.

Windwhistle Warren rescue centre care for rabbits and guinea pigs and they have developed an adoption process to re-home the pets who come to them.

Our little cleaning bunnies

A bouquet of flowers & chocolates

Above (L to R): Asset & Commercial Director Michael Craggs and John Simmons

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We have launched a unique scheme which allows customers to enter their allocated properties before the keys have been formally handed over to them.

The scheme, called ‘Creating Your Home’ allows new and transferring customers to get into the property to be able to assist in modernising their home before they move in. This consists of decorating, fitting carpets, fitting new internal doors and various other minor jobs, getting their new home just how they want it before they move in.

Retired couple Dougie and Pauline Smith, who have had four tenancies with Severn Vale Housing over many years, have just moved into a two bedroom bungalow in Priors Park, Tewkesbury. They were the first customers to take part in the Creating Your Home scheme.

Dougie Smith said: “We’re empty nesters now. All of our five children have left home and we were rattling around in our previous house. We’re getting older and my mobility isn’t what it was, so we decided to ask Severn Vale if we could downsize to a bungalow. When they told us we could get

into our new home before the keys were officially handed over to decorate and get the carpets fitted it was absolutely brilliant. We had access to the property two weeks before we officially moved in so were even able to start work on the garden.

“The Creating Your Home scheme took all the stress out of the move. On the day we got the keys all we had to do was get the furniture in. I would recommend the scheme to anyone”.

Severn Vale Asset and Commercial Director Michael Craggs said: “We believe we are the first housing association in the country to allow tenants into our properties before they have been officially handed over. It makes perfect sense to us to let people in to paint and decorate without being surrounded by furniture. It means tenants have a blank canvas to work on and they get to create their home they want it before they move in”.

Ruth and Mick Hasler moved into their shared ownership home in Brockworth after renting locally for the last six years. Their landlady decided to sell the property and the couple decided they didn’t want to stay in the rental market.

Ruth Hasler had heard about our shared ownership scheme so she approached us to find out about how it worked.

She said: “We had a really good experience with the housing association. It all

happened very quickly. I emailed them and they got back to me saying they had properties coming up within the next fortnight. The timing was perfect.”

“We wanted to stay in the area as I work in Leckhampton and we’d grown fond of Brockworth. This property was somewhere we could afford. It is costing us no more to live here than it was for our rent at our previous address. For us, the shared ownership scheme was a no brainer.”

Severn Vale launches unique scheme on empty homes

OUT ABOUT

Dougie & Pauline outside their new hone

“The Creating Your Home scheme took all the stress out of

the move. I would recommend the

scheme to anyone.”Dougie Smith

Shared ownership is the answer

Happy new homeowners !

“We had a really good experience with the housing association. It all happened very quickly... For us, the shared ownership scheme was a no brainer.”

Above (L to R): Dougie & Pauline Smith

Above (L to R): Ruth & Mick Hasler

7Get in touch at connect@svhs.org.uk

We were approached by trustees from Tewkesbury Museum, who had been given hundreds of old photographs by the Gloucestershire Echo, when the newspaper moved from their Church Street offices to the High Street, 15 years ago.

Chairman of the Museum Trustees Steve Goodchild said: “We have literally hundreds of old photos which were taken in Tewkesbury over many years. Obviously we can identify places, but many of the photos are of people, parties and outings, and we don’t have any captions.

“We thought we would approach Severn Vale Housing to see if we could enlist the help of their retirement scheme residents, and hopefully we can put some names to some faces”.

Severn Vale Housing Elderly Services Manager David Woolley said: “I am sure our residents will really enjoy seeing these old photos. Many of them are Tewkesbury born and bred so there is a good chance that they will be able to identify the people in the photos. There will be notebooks next to the photos so residents can write down the names of the people they recognise.

“The exhibition started at Barton Court and will then move around to our four other retirement schemes in the town”.

It was seen by residents at Barton Court and it will then move to Lanes Court, Spring Gardens, Virginia Close and Graham Court.

OLD PHOTOS TO JOG MEMORIES OF RETIREMENT SCHEME RESIDENTS

MEMORIES

An exhibition of old photos of Tewkesbury will be doing a tour of retirement schemes in the town, and it began with a launch in April at Barton Court. The photographic roadshow will culminate in a public open evening at Barton Court on Monday 23rd May from 6.30 to 8.30pm.

7Get in touch at connect@svhs.org.uk

Our Barton Court retirement scheme in Barton Road, Tewkesbury celebrated its 30th birthday in early April.

Residents were joined by the Tewkesbury Town Mayor John Badham for a cake cutting event.

Barton Court’s longest serving resident is 88 year old Ivy Wadley. She has lived at the development for the last 16 years and joined John Badham in cutting the cake.

John Badham said: “We had entertainment from our very own quintet, the Sunshine

Jazz Group, which serenaded us with a wide selection of old favourites. It was a memorable occasion much enjoyed by all”.

Scheme Manager Sally Mearns said: “We have a plaque up in our communal lounge which commemorates the opening of Barton Court by Councillor C. Lynch, Chairman of the Housing Committee on 4th April 1986, so it seemed fitting to invite the along the Tewkesbury Town Mayor to celebrate 30 successful years of this retirement scheme”.

CELEBRATE

Barton Court celebrated its 30th birthday

CompetitionWinnersCongratulations to our Winter Word search winner Mrs Trixie Foster of Woodmancote who wins a £20 shopping voucher. And also congratulations go to our ‘Santa Spot the Difference’ winner Mrs S. Wintle of Maisemore who wins a hamper.

Barton Court Birthday

Above (L to R): Director of Customer and Community Fay Shanahan, Ivy Wadley, Tewkesbury Town Mayor John Badham.

We’ve been busy reviewing our policies and procedures, making sure they’re up-to-date and fit in with our new ways of working. These include how we allocate properties, complaints and anti-social behaviour policies. We’ve made changes to these policies and it’s important customers understand them, so please go to goo.gl/7khIHs to see a summary of the changes. We still have a few more policies to review and we’d love customers to get involved in this process too, either online or face-to-face.

Interested? Email: godigital@svhs.org.uk

New policy changes

Following wide scale promotion and a There are also representatives from our partners including Green Square, Tewkesbury BoroughCouncil, Gloucestershire Fire Service, TurningPoint, Gloucestershire Furniture Recycling Project,Tewkesbury Job Centre and Gloucestershire Police.

rigorous recruitment process to find customer members for our new Stakeholder Senate, we are delighted to announce the appointment of 12 customer members. The members have been selected from 24 who applied for the role. The process included assessment centre events to identify those with the ability to communicate well and work supportively in a team based situation. These events were followed by interviews to better understand why the candidates were interested in the role.

As part of the recruitment process we werekeen to find members from a wide rangeof geographic locations to represent thespread of Severn Vale Housing propertiesacross the Borough of Tewkesbury andbeyond. The successful memberslive in locations right across the areawe work in and will each bring a uniqueperspective to the Senate as a result.

Areas Represented

Churchdown

Tewkesbury

Cheltenham

Northway

In the next edition of Connect we’d like to include some of our customers’ favourite recipes andhousehold tips. Please email them to connect@svhs.org.uk

Introducing our new Stakeholder Senate

Ashleworth

Gloucester

Bishop’s Cleeve

GreenSquare