I have just returned from two weeks holiday to find Autumn well advanced and perhaps this, along with the milestone of Jacksons celebrating this week the anniversary of our move to Falcon Court, has put me in a reflective mood.
Twelve months ago this was the weekend of moving our office, a very short distance in terms of miles, but a very long way in terms of facilities and our plans for the future.
The impetus this move has given to our business is very difficult to measure but it is clear that we have now got office facilities of which we are proud and which provide a modern, comfortable working environment for all to share. We have been able to host events at the office, which would have been difficult before, and these have been enjoyed, not only by us but by many in the business community in which we work, including our breakfast club TS18 which has been enthusiastically supported by many businesses since its inception at the start of this year.
We have welcomed new staff and grown our training offering, and in particular have been able to develop our work experience offering for school and university students with the programme including this year, a Law taster day for High Tide students which involved, amongst other things, a mock murder trial where all the students had a chance to try advocacy.
In terms of our clients, we are now able to provide comfortable meeting room facilities for all types of meeting long and short, small and large, for both businesses and private clients with full disabled facilities where required.
In terms of location, we stated our aim to make our business park a vibrant place to work and we are delighted that new neighbours are arriving all the time. We are sure they have all got many reasons as we had for choosing Preston Farm as their business home, and that this is not entirely due to our arrival, but we like to think we have played our part in raising the profile of this area and its merits.
Like birthdays, anniversaries are occasions to celebrate milestones but also to make plans and we have exciting plans for the year ahead including new ways to engage with the community in which we work and to provide excellent service to our clients. First, we need to complete a major IT upgrade with a new practice management system being installed this month which will give us more efficient ways of working and new means to communicate with clients. This project will no doubt be as testing to complete as the move, but we know the benefits will be as great and that we have the teams in place to bring this to a successful fruition.
It is for those teams that I am most glad that we made our move last year because the employees of our firm deserve a pleasant comfortable working environment that they can be proud of. So this week we will be celebrating our anniversary with cake of course and then we will be rolling up our sleeves to complete this Autumn’s project. There is never a dull moment!
Jane Armitage, Managing Partner
