Where has the Summer Gone?

The last few months have sped by so fast and things have been so busy at the Trust that it has been a little while since our last blog.

On Monday, 10th September we celebrated our 5th Birthday at the Meriden with 96 participants taking the plunge in our abseil event and we are still busy collecting in the monies for the Peace Hospice towards our £50,000 goal.

As well as the abseil, all of our staff were out in the community helping to transform the area with litter picking, grounds maintenance, pillar painting by the Meriden shops, profiling and more but the largest project of all was the renovation of the Subway.

Three local schools, Albanwood, Berrygrove and Cherry Tree submitted designs by the children.  Some of these were selected and have been replicated onto the subway walls.   Of course, none of this could have been achieved without the help and generosity of some of our contractors and partners.

Trusty by name and trusty by nature, that’s me you know…………I could not resist taking part in the abseil along with some of my furry friends…………  Harry the Hornet, from Watford Football Club, Harvey Bear from the Peace Hospice and Safe Sammy, (Mulalleys mascot), who are one of our contractors. 

What an adventure, the experience was absolutely incredible.  170 feet high up on Munden View looking down on all the little people and buildings below, it was like looking at a model playground.

Following on from our day’s event, we had our Annual General Meeting when we launched our new Business Plan 2012 – 2017.

Our four Corporate Objectives for the next 5 year are:

Community Focused - this is all about us being a community  business – using our assets to create community hubs, working with the community to develop local vision and  putting money in to undertake community development.

Growth Agenda – we are looking to build 500 new homes over the next 5 years whilst making better use of our properties by implementing our under-occupancy strategy.  We are also looking to sell the great services that we offer and continuing to develop new Social Enterprises.

Excellent Services – this objective is the priority for our residents, to be customer focused and offer the best services that we possibly can.  This week is October Customer Service Week and to celebrate we have become a member of the Institute of Customer Service.  We have held briefings for our staff to explain our plans going forward and we believe that our residents will see the difference

Our final Corporate Objective is that we wish to be an Organisation of Choice.  Our staff, partners and whoever we work with are very important to us.  We strive to make clear and wise decisions as we progress towards our next 5 years.

If you would like to find out any more about our abseil event, our Business Plan or anything else happening at the Trust, please go to http://www.wcht.org.uk or please contact me on trusty.house@wcht.org.uk or on our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/WatfordCommunityHousingTrust.