Rooftop Blogs

I am Nathan Cook and I work for Rooftop Housing Group for their Gloucestershire Young People’s Service as an Apprentice Development Worker. I have lived in a council flat since November 2010, which I got after moving out of Berkeley Street, which is run by Rooftop's Gloucestershire Young People's Service, providing temporary housing for homeless young people in Gloucester. My previous jobs have been in Retail, Customer Service and Business Administration, I didn’t enjoy them much but its better than being on Jobseekers Allowance!

Well, it wasn’t that long ago that I didn’t really know what the internet was. And now here I am, writing my own blog!

I’ve become involved in a number of local projects with the Community Fund, such as the new bandstand at Pershore, and more recently, the revamp of Badsey Remembrance Hall. One of my proudest moments at Rooftop so far was being nominated along with my wife for Tenant of the Year at the prestigious Housing Excellence Awards last year – we came second, which is a great honour.

The ASB Forum has already met with some residents who have experienced ASB, to talk about their experience and to find out their experience when reporting an incident. We discovered that many residents didn’t know that they could use Rooftop’s out of hours number (0800 0421 800) to report anti-social behaviour, the same number used for emergency repairs. As well as calling Rooftop, residents can drop into the office to report ASB face-to-face or contact Rooftop through the website. We all know that being subjected to anti-social behaviour can be stressful and upsetting. The important thing to know is that you’re not alone – we are here to help.

The final quarter of the financial year is always a busy time. For me as Area Manager it means a number of things: the setting of service charges in time for the annual rent increase in April, putting together a plan for the 2012/13 neighbourhood walkabouts and planning for the team’s year ahead at our team action planning day.

The difficulty with money worries is that if they are ignored, they can spiral out of control and in no time at all, you may find yourself in debt.

I recently attended my first Board meeting. It was nerve wracking at first, but also quite exciting. The meeting kicked off 9.30am and lasted for the best part of the day with only a short break for lunch. There was a full agenda of items to discuss relating to finance, housing, development, asset management and a whole range of other issues but we managed to get through it all.

It was a day full of new ideas, and a chance to see up close the types of construction methods we would normally only see on TV shows like Grand Designs – houses built from straw bales, or polystyrene blocks filled with concrete, and houses that come in kit form! And then there was all the beautiful fixtures and fittings...bi-fold doors that open up an entire wall to ‘bring the outside inside’, gorgeous (and very expensive!) bespoke kitchens with granite worktops and extractor fans that magically rise out of the kitchen unit at the touch of a button! Oh, and then there was the amazing pink sparkly radiator!

The event, organised by the Beckford Women’s Institute, was a great success and saw all who attended try the latest gadgets, whether an absolute beginner with technology, or more experienced.

It's been a busy few weeks for the Board at Rooftop. We held our Annual General Meeting on Wednesday 21 September and invited stakeholders, partners and some of our suppliers to join us, to discuss progress against our business plan targets and our plans for the coming 12 months.

I get a huge amount of job satisfaction from my role, yet there are some projects that I’m particularly proud of.

The weekend before we launched this website I spent several hours proof reading all of the text. I carried out this task in my ‘office’ at home. And when I say ‘office’ I actually mean a cupboard under the stairs (literally!). And not just any old cupboard, in fact it was originally a larder.

Welcome to the sparkling new website for Rooftop Housing Group. After many long months of hard work, we have a new-look website that I'm sure you’ll find easier to use, more helpful, and with lots of exciting new features.