Following on from our brand new reception area and newly decorated boardroom, we decided to continue the make-over to the front of Clavering House with a little 'spring clean'! We are lucky to have a beautiful Georgian grade II listed building, and with such an impressive facade there is not too much we need to do to keep the building looking lovely.
We decided to make use of the huge, street facing windows of our Front Room and Training Room, our popular ground floor meeting rooms. Gone are the boring, plain blinds and instead we have fitted some brand new branded blinds, which we are sure you will agree look so much better! As well as updating the blinds, we also decided to give our banners an upgrade too, as they had started to look a little weathered. Once fitted, with the backdrop of fabulously sunny Spring day, the new banners really stand out!
Grade II Listed
Plus, thanks to our tenant Sarah Deane, photography extraordinaire, they look especially fabulous in photo form too!
Watch this space for our next project, we've got a few more treats in store for our lovely building to keep her looking her best...
We have such a wide variety of businesses here at Clavering House Business Centre that we wanted to give them the opportunity to introduce themselves. We have been running our ‘Introducing’ features as a way of showcasing our tenants, from small start ups to well established businesses. Next to feature in our ‘Introducing…’ section are one of our newest tenants, StudyFlats:
The StudyFlats Story
If you have ever been a student, you probably know that one of the biggest hassles that students face is finding a place to live
StudyFlats seeks to address an issue that almost every prospective international student faces when going abroad: finding trusted student accommodation and their new home. The company was founded by Sohrab Vazir, a former international student in the UK and a graduate of Newcastle Law School.
Sohrab Vazir, Founder of StudyFlats
Sohrab came to the UK from Iran and studied at Keele University and Newcastle University.
Throughout his studies, Sohrab had issues when trying to find accommodation every year. He knew there had to be an easier way to do it. It fast became clear to Sohrab that he wasn’t the only person who was having this issue. When he spoke with more people, he learned that there were many others struggling to find accommodation too. From there, he decided that he should do something about it.
He had the chance to do this once he graduated from his studies. Newcastle University endorsed and mentored Sohrab for a Tier 1 Graduate Entrepreneur Visa, a scheme designed by the UK Government for international graduates with credible and viable business ideas. The company was initially born under the name Interhousing and re-branded to StudyFlats in October 2017.
Since then it has helped students from all over the world find student accommodation.
Sohrab didn't only want want to make it easier to find student accommodation through a free service and advice. He also wanted StudyFlats and his personal story to inspire other prospective and current international students. Any questions or issues that students may have, StudyFlats does their best to help them out at zero cost.
StudyFlats currently has student accommodation in over 25 cities across the UK. This number continues to grow, and StudyFlats has recently expanded into the US and Australia.
It's almost that time of year again! Not long before you find out if Santa thinks you've been naughty or nice this year - have you made your list yet?!
This year we will be closing the doors of the business centre on Friday 21st December at 5pm and heading home for our festive break, but we'll be finishing the year off in style with our annual clients Christmas Shindig in our Front Room from 12pm. We'll be celebrating with our clients old and new over mulled wine and mice pies, as a thank you for contributing to another successful year at Clavering House, and also looking ahead to the exciting plans we have for 2019.
From everyone here at Clavering House, we wish you all a very merry Christmas and best wishes for the New year!!!
A couple of weeks ago, we said goodbye to our trusty but tired looking desk and worn out floor in reception, closed the doors and went home for the weekend (not before snapping some quick 'before' pics though of course). When we came back to work on the Monday morning, we walked in to a Fairy Godmother-like transformation! We were absolutely delighted that our contractors from Crafted & Co had been working tirelessly over the whole weekend to give our reception area a whole new lease of life. Comparing the before and after pictures shows just how much work they put in!
Goodbye old desk!
Goodbye old flooring!
Goodbye old waiting area!
We are utterly thrilled with our new-look reception which has given us, amongst other things, a completely new desk with a privacy panel and room for two people to work, convenient storage units to help keep us organised and tidy, a new comfortable waiting area bench, and a brand new credenza for our refreshments (which as always are freshly brewed Tynemouth Coffee, a selection of Ringtons flavoured teas and of course a range of Ringtons cookies). All the new furniture was built in their Gateshead workshop and transported over at the weekend to be fitted once the new flooring was in place.
Sarah Deane Photography
Sarah Deane Photography
Reception Service
Not bad for one weekend!
Thank you to all of our tenants for accommodating us over the weekend while the work was being carried out, and special thanks must go out to Sarah and her lovely assistant Emma, from Sarah Deane Photography, for taking these fab shots for us and sending them over within 24 hours, we are very grateful indeed (watch this space for a very special offer from the photography studio in the New Year!). We hope you'll all agree with us that it was worth shutting the building down over one weekend to enable the contractors to crack on and get everything set up for the Monday morning. We've already had some lovely feedback from both tenants and visitors to Clavering House about what an improvement it's made. Let us know what you think!
We have such a wide variety of businesses here at Clavering House Business Centre that we wanted to give them the opportunity to introduce themselves. We have been running our 'Introducing' features as a way of showcasing our tenants, from small start ups to well established businesses.
Next to feature in our ‘Introducing…’ section are the very talented Curate Creative:
We are a branding, advertising and design agency with a wealth of experience in many sectors.
We launched in 2016 and have been busy working with some fantastic clients and brands ever since. These include:
Virgin Active UK
A national fitness brand. We were appointed as their agency to produce all of their day-to-day operational and promotional requirements as well as their full brand advertising campaigns.
The Cookie Jar
A cosy retreat in Alnwick. We created the brand, and work on all operational and promotional materials, press adverts, website and social media.
St Michaels Hotel & Spa
In Falmouth. We provide ongoing support for this brand by producing various operational and promotional items including their seasonal magazine, menus, and events promotions.
At Clavering House, we work with office brokers to help clients find their perfect new work space. Free Office Finder specialise in finding businesses serviced, managed & co-working space for rent in the UK, and have recently published a blog post outlining reasons why renting a serviced office can be a fantastic money-saving option for businesses of all sizes. They have kindly provided an excerpt for us, edited with Clavering House Business Centre in mind, to show how we can help you with your office needs:
"More companies are choosing Serviced Offices, and for good reason. They’re flexible meaning your company can grow naturally. They’re already furnished when you get there, meaning no stressful days and weeks of moving in and setting up. They are usually found in desirable areas, that otherwise might be out of the price range of some businesses, meaning companies can now find themselves in the city centre or near the important transport links. Clavering House is a great example, with impressive offices right in the heart of Newcastle, just a two minute walk from Newcastle Central Station.
With all the important stuff figured out as well as all the added bonuses of Serviced Offices, people often assume they must come at a hefty price tag. Yet, FreeOfficeFinder have compiled a list of ways that Serviced Offices can actually save businesses money.
Less Space Needed
As opposed to renting a leased office, you only pay for the space you really need in a Serviced Office. Facilities like toilets, kitchens, meeting rooms and break rooms are communal, managed facilities. The Serviced Office provider takes care of these, so that you only have to pay for the desk space that you use. This can provide a large saving for businesses, who would otherwise have to pay rent on all the space they use.
On top of this, Serviced Offices often come with shared meeting rooms, like the ones at Clavering House. These you can use to your delight, without having to spend the extra costs for a larger office, which you would have to were you to rent a leased office.
Already Fitted Out
When renting a Serviced Office, you won’t have to worry about chairs, desks, drawers or filing cabinets. In addition, the space will be decorated and can be configured on request. When you rent a leased office, you will need to purchase furniture as the space is typically an empty shell. Fitting an office out can also prove very expensive as build work isn’t cheap, so there is a lot of time and effort, in addition to cost, saved in the process.
Outsourced Staffing Costs
Serviced Offices often already have employed staff, such as Receptionists and Admin Staff. This means that you can benefit from in house staff who can perform any adhoc task you need (on site) without the need to employ and pay wages for a dedicated person/s for the role. Sometimes, you may need to pay an extra pay-as-you-go fee for support service staff, but this is minimal compared to an actual wage. Sometimes some of these services may even come at no extra charge, for instance Clavering House offer a telephone answering service at no additional cost to tenants.
No Dilapidation Costs
When leaving at the end of a leased office rental term, you would normally be charged for dilapidations, meaning that you may need to pay to have the office space returned to its original format, as it was before you moved in. These end-of-tenancy costs themselves can sometimes catch tenants out, with landlords exploiting this. It's additional costs like these that make a Serviced Office seem like such a paradise. Serviced Offices don’t normally charge any dilapidations and allow you to leave without a big bill."
We have such a wide variety of businesses here at Clavering House Business Centre that we wanted to give them the opportunity to introduce themselves. Next to feature in our ‘Introducing…’ section are:
Life Saving Training
It’s a sad fact, but 6 out of 10 people who die through injury in the UK, die needlessly - because they could have been saved by basic First Aid. More than half of people who have ever completed a First Aid course in the past, don’t have the confidence to help.
Life Saving Training has been cleverly designed to combat this big problem by creating resourceful and confident First Aiders, who have the confidence and skills to help in real life emergencies.
There’s no point in simply going through the motions and completing a box-ticking exercise is there? It’s our mission to transform people’s experiences of First Aid training, save more lives and better protect businesses.
All our training is environment specific, practical, engaging and effective. Our qualifications are regulated and will keep you fully compliant with the Health and Safety Executive.
But don’t just take our word for it. Our customers agree that our modern approach to training is the best around - with the highest number of 5 star Google reviews of any First Aid training provider in the region!
We also offer Health & Safety training such as Manual Handling and Fire Safety and have a wide range of approved Health & Safety eLearning courses too. Something for everyone.
If you’re bored of the same old, outdated and ineffective training that’s around, please get in touch. We’d love to help and show you there’s a different way…
We have issued our updated privacy policy today in line with the GDPR guidelines coming into effect from 25th May 2018. You can review our privacy policy here. As has always been the case, we do review this policy regularly and reserve the right to make changes whenever necessary. The date of the most recent change will always be displayed at the bottom of the page. If you have any questions regarding our privacy policy please contact us and we will be happy to discuss this with you.
So, you own your own business. You've got a great a product or service and you know your market, but the problem is there never seems to be enough hours in the day to make the most of your business, sometimes the best use of your time is to outsource ... That's where a freelance P.A. comes in.
A freelance P.A. can do all the things that an office based P.A. can do (apart from make the tea!) but with only a fraction of the cost. You only need to pay a freelance P.A. for the work that you need doing, with none of the other associated costs like sick pay or holiday pay etc.
The kind of skills you can expect from a freelance P.A. are:
Traditional P.A. services - correspondence, report writing, quotes, invoicing, paying invoices, online banking, diary management etc.
Social media - this is often something that small businesses either don't have the time, or the knowledge to use fully. A freelance P.A. can prepare content, design and schedule posts for a number of social media channels in order to maximise your coverage, and generate interest in your business
Advertising and marketing - a freelance P.A. can work with you to put together an effective advertising strategy, including creative briefs/working with designers, content, media bookings and more
Project or event management - if you're struggling to coordinate everything for a project or event, a freelance P.A. can ensure that things run smoothly, on time and within budget
Research - searching out that elusive product or gift, travel, competitor analysis and market research all come under the remit of a freelance P.A.
GDPR - if you're unsure how to become GDPR compliant, a freelance P.A. can complete the whole process for you
Most freelance P.A.'s have skills above and beyond what I've listed here, so if your requirements aren't covered, just ask ...
I have put together a range of discounted pricing options for using P.A. Pal especially for Clavering House tenants, starting from just £10 an hour.
I’d love to hear from you, so please get in touch to discuss how I can help you and your business.
Thanks to Sanondaf Newcastle an innovative ‘touch-less’ hygiene services company, Clavering House can proudly announce it has the most hygienic meeting room facilities in the city of Newcastle upon Tyne.
Sanondaf Newcastle business owner Christopher Traynor said when asked about the work being carried out:
“Sanondaf Newcastle are pleased to be a part of Clavering House’s continual investment into first class meeting room and office space facilities. It’s refreshing to see the great lengths Clavering House are taking to make sure the client experience is the best in the city”.
Sanondaf Newcastle have a patented environmentally friendly disinfectant that kills 99.99% of bacteria, viruses, yeasts and moulds yet poses no harm to humans, animals or plants – unique to the industry. They use electrostatic technology to charge the patented particles, making them attract to every surface providing maximum coverage (even on electrical office equipment and soft furnishings) and at a fraction of the time and cost it would take a ‘hands on cleaner to perform whole room disinfection’.
When speaking about their new service, Christopher continued:
“Sanondaf Newcastle are the first of it’s kind. We are introducing modern technology to revolutionise the hygiene services market. Conventional methods of cleaning are scientifically proven to be ineffective, time consuming and thereby costly. While we are not replacing the need to clean, we are using science to take hygiene to the next level, resulting in fewer bacterial and viral outbreaks such as Staphylococcus, C-diff, norovirus and the Flu virus. Healthy environments, mean healthy people. We are currently working in sectors such as NHS Trusts, Care homes, Nurseries, office spaces, gyms, residential homes and many more. We are endorsed by the Institute of Specialist Surveyors & Engineers and the Healthy Homes campaign, a NHS backed charitable organisation aiming to reduce illness caused by inadequate home hygiene – an estimated £20 Billion cost to the NHS”.
Prices start from £50 + VAT
If your home or work environment needs a hygiene boost contact Sanondaf Newcastle:
writing, quotes, invoicing, paying invoices, online banking, diary management etc.
