The school roof is on!

[News for charity Child of Hope]

Wow, now you can see the school starting to look complete… because the new red roof is on!

Contractors have been beavering away - you can see in one of the pictures that Health & Safety isn’t really something they know about… no hard hats or safety harnesses and wearing flip-flops – but it’s finished.

More details and photos...

Meet the team: Kirsty Gammack

[Photography and social media post for Store & Secure]

Kirsty, our facilities co-ordinator, has a bit of a Harry Styles obsession (how does that work for an Oxford University graduate?!!)… anyway we won’t hold that against her… she also loves a good hashtag, which makes her ideal for helping with our social media. 

Kirsty lives in Poole and really likes her job’s interactivity with customers (she says it’s like a small community). She’s fun-loving and very fond of music and films.

Meet Bex in the UK during October

[News post for charity Child of Hope]

Bex Okotel, one of our Uganda team leaders, is making a solo return trip to the UK from Uganda during October and would love to meet as many friends, supporters and sponsors as possible.

If you’d like her to visit your church, school, a group of friends or business colleagues during that period, please contact us.

Why not hold an event in your home for some of your friends and family to hear about her work with slum children? If you’d like to do something like that, please contact our UK office and we'll do all we can to set it up.

Extra storage space - whenever you need it

Latest news update, especially for Bournemouth businesses, from our client Store & Secure at Castlepoint.

Local businesses are discovering the great benefits of storing their excess with us... check out our first story! And if you haven't seen our news in the press or social media, here's a round-up for you...

Looking smart

Staff at Child of Hope's slum-based school in Uganda are smiling… they’ve got smart new shirts! Each colour represents a different department at the school.

Dressing up

[Photography and news post for High-end joinery Kirolite]

A stack of lovely wooden drawer fronts with a metallic finish waiting for delivery to a luxury home.

We produced the bespoke drawer units for a dressing room… the feature of the drawer fronts was completed with the same gold, leather-effect wall hanging that was used in the bedroom next to the dressing room. When the installation is complete, we'll update you with more details and pictures.

Dorset removals firms... need more storage space?

[News/social media post for client Storage & Secure]

Are you struggling for high-quality storage space? We’ve got loads!

Ok, that’s not a boast, it’s just that we can hire you some fast – at very short notice – whenever you need an overflow from your own premises.

We understand fully how removals companies work – remember we formerly owned and operated Maidman’s Removals – so we can work with you closely and confidentially to store your clients items with a minimum of fuss.

Storage with Store & Secure is low-cost, has free parking with 24-your access and you can upscale or downscale quickly and easily. Listen, you can even take advantage of our forklifts, pallet trucks and trolleys at no extra cost! Not forgetting our friendly, uniformed staff to greet you and your visitors, plus free tea and coffee all round.

It’s safe: With constant supervision, monitored CCTV cameras and alarm systems, our locked units are accessible to you and only you.

Unit sizes: Units are available from one cubic metre to 20,000 square feet of self-contained units, and you are able to adjust your space as your storage requirements expand and contract.

At Castlepoint, we are easily accessible from the surrounding areas. You can store just about anything in our units… our space becomes your space. Call us and see if we can help you.

A lovely pair

[Photography and news/social media post for client Kirolite]

This novel pair of twin bedside cabinets came to us as a concept for a new superyacht – and needed to be flexible for use either side-by-side between twin beds or separately on each side of a double bed.

We designed and manufactured them (and others) in the same metal frame in distressed platinum finish, wood veneer and white leather that ran throughout the luxury boat. Each unit has a push-to-open drawer and smaller space below accessed by a hinged flap.

It was made as two separate components to look as one and is easy to take apart - joined only by a magnetic, leather-covered connector that simply lifts off.

With space at a premium in the superyacht bedrooms, the units were shaped at the back to sit over utilities trunking that runs along the foot of the bedroom back wall. Other design challenges included how the free-standing units would support themselves and stay upright – which was achieved by clever weight balance.

More books on their way for slum children

[News/social media post for charity Child of Hope]

Huge thanks to the schools that have been donating their old library books to our school over the last few months! When you bear in mind that many Ugandan schools have almost no books, our fast-growing library is the envy of the regional education system! Here's the books being sorted from the last shipment.

We now have hundreds of books to send to Uganda in the next container-load in September. We will be sending 58 boxes in all, mostly containing books, and also some of the donated clothes we have received.

As last year, we are hiring space in a shipping container organised by Friends of Teso, which did a tremendous job getting equipment there last year without any of the usual problems that come with shipping goods to Africa. It will be opened just once - in a town only a couple of hours from our school in Mbale – when all the various charities are there to receive their goods. It will take around three months to arrive. The container will stay in Uganda and be converted into storage, offices, or even a home.

The overall cost of getting our boxes to Uganda will be around £420, which is brilliant for the number of books and clothes included. Would anyone like to help sponsor that shipment? if so, please e-mail us and you can simply make a donation online, make an online bank transfer or send a cheque.

Man’s best friend

[Photography and news/social media post for client Store & Secure]

Wherever possible we offer our facilities to the local community, and one of the great ways is when the Dorset Police dog handlers visit to train their search dogs. Great for us because we love dogs!

The dogs need to get used to commercial environments and our premises are ideal… so they visit every few months for a training session. The sniffer dogs are trained in searching for drugs, cash and firearms. They receive specialist training to develop their sense of smell – already said to be 200 times more sensitive than the human version.

Here’s dog handler Andy Warbridge with one of the Force’s springer spaniels, Deefor.

There’s some great information about Dorset’s awesome police dogs here.

UK teachers get cooking... slum style

[News post for charity Child of Hope]

On the last day for Lucy Swift and her team from the UK, they went into the local community to cook a meal for some families of our children. Here’s what Lucy said in her blog…

“… Then followed an amazing experience. The welfare team had arranged for the four of us to go into the community and to cook for some of the children and the parents just how they do. This included all the preparation including the lighting of the charcoal fire, the sorting of the rice, the sweeping of the house, chopping the meat and vegetables and washing the dishes.

“After 3 hours of hot, hard work to produce a small meal to feed a family of 15 it helped us understand more how hard work it is living in the community of Namatala and even more how easy we have it!”

The team did a fantastic job working with out teachers and teaching assistants - lessons well learned and new systems firmly in place. This kind of professional input makes a huge difference to the effectiveness and social impact of our school. Thank you so much!

Self-storage facility of the year

[Photography and news post for client Store & Secure, Bournemouth]

We have entered the prestigious self-storage industry awards competition! Bit cheeky maybe, as we’re only three years old, but actually we think we’ve got a good chance of winning the Facility of the Year award!

Filling in the questionnaire was fun… under the question ‘What makes the business stand out from the rest?’ we put all the information about how professional we are (of course) - but what really sets us apart is our friendly customer relationships, hospitality (hot drinks, sweets and even ice creams during the summer) and providing lots of free extra services. So that’s at the top of our list – let’s hope the judges like it, because our customers clearly do!

We also pride ourselves on a clean and tidy facility, and this is regularly mentioned by potential customers when checking us out and have viewed other companies’ facilities – and it often wins us the business!

Dry… bright… clean… friendly… secure… 7 days a week.

All the latest

eNewsletter for charity Child of Hope, with round-up of news including the roof going onto its school that will give free education to 600 slum kids in Uganda.

Kitchen with sales advantage

[Social media post for high-end joinery Kirolite]

We promised a photo of a bespoke kitchen design we produced and manufactured, which is helping provide a sales advantage in a developer’s conversion of an office block to luxury apartments… and here it is!

Our contract with Herts Builders is to produce 21 high-end kitchens for the project in Palmers Green, London.

IDM Developments’ construction team wanted a unique kitchen design to help boost its edge in a very busy property market, with a specific colour and requirements. It involved a handle-less system with a contemporary look and a bespoke colour that will last. Cupboard fronts are in an ivory colour, while formed metal sections are introduced in the kicker plates. The LG Hi-macs solid-surface tops provide a seamless finish regardless of length.

Nearly there!

[Social media post for charity Child of Hope]

There’s a buzz about the school this week, because although it’s school holidays… the roof is going on!

Lots of excitement, because this clearly signals that our school is nearly complete.

This school is not a temporary structure – as many charity-built African schools are, lasting only a few years. This building is a large, three-story permanent facility to provide quality education to poverty-struck slum kids for decades to come. It is extremely well-built... and has cost us accordingly!

We want our school to be a ‘beacon of hope’ to our slum community – something that stands the test of time – to show that we believe in the community and that we’re not ‘here today, gone tomorrow’. So it’s built to last many, many years.

There are lots of reasons why we have built it so well - you can read them here!

We are still raising funds to complete this final (third) level of classrooms - if you’d like to help, please click here. That would be lovely!

Big help from UK teachers

[Social media post for charity Child of Hope]

Three teachers and a teaching assistant from the UK are currently helping at our school, and having some fast, positive impact!

Lucy, Vicky and Sabi from St Mary Redcliffe, Bristol, and Laura from Dauntseys Academy in Devizes are now halfway through their two weeks with our staff… here’s a report from Lucy.

“As last year we are having an amazing time and are really pleased with how well the teachers and the new head and deputy are embracing our ideas. They've also been a lot of fun and have been very open about areas they need help with which is great.

“We concentrated last week on implementing a new behaviour system based on rewards and positive discipline. It is all about children choosing to make the right choices or the wrong choices. We worked with the primary teachers on coming up with a reward system that includes positive language, house points and stickers and a positive discipline system that includes apologising, writing letters and missing playtime. Although early days we are already seeing it working well.

“This week we are concentrating on reinforcement of the behaviour system, demonstration lessons and training teachers in the afternoon in areas such as use of the teaching assistant and differentiation. I am also working with Mike and Faustine on the role of the head and deputy.

“As last year our parents and children donated stationery for us to bring out, as did Laura’s."

There are more pictures on our facebook page.