Latest news from Overdene House

It’s been quite a busy month, all in all. I still have a number of birthday presents to use/spend/eat/do! I spent last weekend in London with my daughter as yet another birthday treat. I know, I’ve been spoilt rotten and long may it continue! We had a lovely weekend shopping, dining and cocktailing, followed up with a trip to the ballet Cinderella by Matthew Bourne, which was a bit different from your traditional Swan Lake type of ballet, in that it was set in London during the Second World War and Prince Charming was an RAF pilot.  It was all very enjoyable and they lived happily ever after.

I have a couple of other activities yet to do – but more of that at a later time; for now I’ll bring you up to date with the goings on at K&H over the past month.

Charity donations
As you know, we are always looking at ways to improve our service here at Kirkpatrick & Hopes and a few months ago we surveyed our clients to give them the opportunity to feed back to us exactly what it is they want from us. As a Thank You for doing this we agreed to make a charity donation for every questionnaire submitted. I’m happy to tell you that you raised £410 for the following charities:

     Naomi House £250
     Unicef £90
     Amnesty International £70

Thank you to everyone who participated in the survey – we will be publishing the results in our next edition of our News & Views.

Best Practice showcase
I’m delighted to say that we have been recognised as a host company on the National Best Practice Visit Programme for our achievements in Leadership, Marketing and People Issues.

The first of these visits is on Wednesday 16 February 2011 – you can read more about that here.

Sage Hints & Tips Workshop
If you are a Sage 50 user you will be interested in this. We held a very successful Hints & Tips Workshop a few months ago and I’m happy to say that we will be holding another one on Thursday 31 March, here at our offices in Theale.  See here  for full details – and it’s absolutely free!

The Happy Planet
At our recent team meeting Andrew Gray introduced us to The Happy Planet website where you can do an on-line survey which measures your own life expectancy, life satisfaction and ecological footprint. You might want to check it out for yourself as there are some very interesting facts on the website – one of which is that people with larger households tend to live longer.

Well, I think our MD Pauline Williamson and family are in for a long life as they have just had another addition to their household. Pauline, along with husband Ian, four strapping young lads, and a Labradoodle called Coco, have just taken delivery of another Labradoodle called Muggles.

This is Pauline and latest family member:

Special visit
Fiona, who is currently enjoying maternity leave, popped in to see us with new baby Orla,  and I must say she is a little dream and happy for anyone to give her a cuddle:

If you have any comments on any of the above – or anything else – please leave a note below. And finally: Roses are Red, Violets are Blue,  Happy Valentine’s Day wishes from me to you x.