This year’s staff conference was held at the Assembly Rooms on Wednesday 23 November.

Staff Conference 2005

This year’s staff conference was held at the Assembly Rooms on Wednesday 23 November and the compere for the day was Wendy Jessop, Local Housing Office Manager.

300 staff attended the event, which kicked off with presentations from:

• Dennis Rees, Chair of Derby Homes – introducing the event
• Shaun Bennett, Director of Investment and Regeneration – looking at proposed plans for new build in the future
• Lorraine Watson, Company Secretary - making finance really interesting with an interactive presentation along with her amusing assistant Dave Godward
• Maria Murphy, Director of Housing and Customer Service – preparing for the forthcoming inspection using the word PERFECT to get the message across.

Whilst lunch was served we had entertainment from the children of Sinfin Primary School who played the steel drums recorders and sang to staff.  There were a total of 21 high quality stalls for staff to look around throughout the lunch break, and a big thank you goes out to all internal and external stallholders.

The afternoon session began with the guest speaker Tom Mannion - Chief Executive of Irwell Valley who presented a humorous motivational speech with great gusto and thoroughly deserved the ovation from the audience.

Our hosts for staff rewards and the raffle were Annabelle Barwick and Dennis Rees.  Ron Griffiths, Concierge Supervisor/Site Manager was announced as ‘Bright Star’ of the Year - well done to Ron!
 
A first ever ‘Partner of the Year’ award went to Enthusiasm for all their hard work with youth on our estates.

Long Service awards were announced and all these staff have a special evening in January to look forward to celebrate their achievement.

14 raffle prizes donated by Derby Homes and our partners were handed out to lucky winners, money raised will be going to the Derby Homes chosen charity – the Special Care Baby Unit at the City Hospital. Terry Willis and Derek Bale were surprised with an award from the Skegness Holiday Home as a thank you for all their hard work and fundraising for the cause- well-done Terry and Derek.

Phil Davies - our leader gave an excellent closing speech congratulating all staff for their hard work in the past year and concluded the event with the launch of a new staff reward scheme for attendance.