Dear colleague

Responding to your training needs

We're aware that there are many people wanting training on aspects of empty property work, and finding it hard to come by.  Using our recent conference as a spring-board we are now starting to move forwards to facilitate that.  Our aim is to be have a bank of proven speakers and trainers available to meet as wide a range of training needs as possible. 

Andrew Lavender - who's probably the most experienced trainer currently working in the empty homes field - has already agreed to work with us to develop a range of training options and resources.   But we want to cast the net as widely as possible and we would like your help to do that.  What we want you to do is to provide the names of people who can either speak or train on specific issues.  

• by speak, we mean do a presentation at a forum or conference on a particular subject. 
• by train, we mean provide a propertly structured day or half-day on a given subject with definite learning outcomes in mind for the course participants.

Either way, we are very happy for people to nominate themselves, in which case we hope you will provide as much information as possible about the topics around which you can speak or train, along with any other relevant information.

We hope to end up with a good list of potential speakers that forums can contact themselves.  With trainers, we think we have a role in quality assurance and we would be looking for any training to be badged up in some way as being endorsed by NAEPP.

Finally - we are interested in the many "fringe" subjects that feed into the expertise of an empty homes officer.  This is not just about enforcement and writing empty homes strategies.

Now to the practicalities of putting information forwards.  Could you please send you suggestions to me at  training@naepp.org.uk

We're changing our name

You may remember a couple of years ago that we asked our members to suggest a new name for NAEPP.  We got a fair few suggestions (not all printable) but we didn't finalise the name at the time because t here were other more urgent tasks.

We've now picked up the thread again and the Executive has decided to re-brand the organisation as the Empty Homes Network. It's simple and to the point and we think most accurately represents the type of organisation we are and aspire to be.  There was a much deliberation about whether to retain the word "practitioner", but in the end the majority came down on the side of keeping it simple.

This change will be implemented over a period of time, starting in about a month.

This name change is good news for Rebecca Lawlor of Rossendale Borough Council.  When the name change was mooted we offered a £25 prize to the first person to suggest the name that was eventually selected.  Reviewing the suggestions we received at the time it turns out that Rebecca was the winner.  She'll be receiving a £25 Amazon voucher very shortly.

Now there is another opportunity to win a prize, because the Executive agreed to offer a £50 prize to anyone who could design a suitable logo for the Empty Homes Network.  The logo should incorporate the letters EHN (yes we know that is the Environmental Health News but that can't be helped) and should feature the colour green. 

Whatever you design, we'd like to be able to reproduce it to as large a size as possible,  so we it can be used on display boards etc. (if the original you create is too small it will start to get ragged when blown up to a larger size). Pretty much any common graphics format (or MS Word even) will be acceptable.  If you do submit a design and win the prize, it must be on the basis that you are transferring the copyright to us so we can use the design exclusively and reproduce it in any medium or channel.. 

We look forward to receiving your contribution (we'll put a gallery up if we get a reasonable selection.

What to do next:

• send us your speaker / trainer suggestions
• send us your logo designs

Best wishes

David Gibbens