Out and about with Carol June 2024

In the last couple of months, I’ve been fortunate to be part of two events designed to increase our visibility and connectedness to our residents and to each other.

The first was towards the end of June when I joined the volunteer gardening event at the Athlone Estate in Kentish Town. 

It was superbly organised by our resident and community engagement team, attended by over 20 colleagues from across Origin and well supported by our grounds maintenance contractor John O Conner, who provided beautiful plants, mulch and tools as well as expert guidance (though there were some distinctly ‘green fingered’ people amongst our  volunteer group too) 

Within a matter of a couple of hours (including a short break for pizza!) we transformed the gardens, to the delight and appreciation of local residents who stopped by to take a look and chat to us. What a brilliant opportunity to connect back to our roots (excuse the pun 😊) as a community based organisation and show our residents that we truly care.

The next event in early July was our quarterly Neighbourhood Explorers, with a group of around 15 of us including colleagues from Gilmartins, descending on Griffin Close, near Dollis Hill in Brent, quite a large estate of low rise blocks of flats and houses. Excellently organised and supported – as always - by the resident and community engagement team, we split into groups of 2 or 3 and armed with our online (and back up paper) survey forms (and brollies!) started knocking on doors. 

A couple of hours later we re-convened, pleased to find that most people like their homes and the area they live in. We picked up on some outstanding repairs including a few complaints about long delays (which we need to improve on), as well as other concerns such as parking, use of e scooters and bikes on the estate paths and bulk refuse being left by the bins. 

We could also see that investment in replacement doors and windows as well as guttering would make a big difference. The accelerated investment in planned work that will come now we have joined Places for People will be very welcome indeed. It will take a while to work through the backlog and we’ll need to prioritise, but it’s good to know that we will now be able to get there and do our bit to help our residents to be proud of their homes.