Here at Sorby House we are keen not to blow our own trumpet about the level of service and quality of facilities that are available to tenants. Therefore, for this month’s blog we thought we would enlist the help Carol Townsend of SUFA (Speaking Up For Advocacy) – one of our most recent occupants – to answer questions regarding Sorby House and what made them choose us over other locations in the city.

To begin with, could you tell us a little about SUFA?

SUFA was born out of a government white paper entitled Valuing People, establishing the need for equality for people that couldn’t speak out for themselves and a need for an advocacy service to speak to people on their behalf. Each of the areas across the country now has to have an advocacy service by law and so it’s been a process of developing the service over the years.

How does SUFA offer a tailored service at Sorby House?

In this office we have four members of staff offering one to one advocacy, which is the carried out by Stacey and Sarah, and self advocacy that myself and Rob carry out.

One to one is where those that may have more complex needs have a personal service provided by our dedicated team and the self advocacy team is a group session where we encourage people to speak up for themselves.

You mention those with specific needs and group work; does Sorby House provide the facilities for those individuals and events?

Definitely; there is excellent disabled access into the building and the rooms are modern, clean and great for group work.

It is also fantastic to be located in the heart of a community so that we can reach out to anyone that may need our service.

Were the facilities the main deciding factor for your relocation?

It was one of them, but not the main one. I would have to say cost was the primary reason that we have set up in Sorby House. The rates here are so reasonable, and the amount of office space is great, nice and light. We were also aware of the rooms that were available to rent when we needed them.

The building is flexible; we occasionally rent the large room that covers the top floor, but also smaller rooms when we need to. The reception is also an added bonus, especially for those with learning difficulties.

It’s nice to hear that you are so positive about the building – would you recommend it?

Certainly, it’s definitely been a good move for SUFA. Oh, and can I add that it’s on fantastic bus routes!

When the decision was made to invest £4.5million in transforming Sorby house into a hub of activity just minutes from the heart of the city, it was recognised that a state of the art multipurpose space would be needed for use by the community. 

As we work to continually improve the service we offer here at Sorby House, each time we host an event within the dedicated space the organiser is asked to give us their thoughts through our feedback form.

The results that we collated between the months  of April 2009 and March 2010 have given us all a great sense of encouragement that the professional team at Sorby House are delivering a first rate service to all those that choose to use the building.

We would like to highlight a few points that we feel are of particular interest including cleanliness of the building, which scored an excellent score of 94%. The room that many choose to use to host a wedding reception or corporate event also scored extremely highly on presentation, with 83%, and 86% gained for comfort.

Of course, any event needs refreshments and at Sorby House their quality and presentation did not go unnoticed by the organisers, who gave them an excellence score of 87%.

Apart from the statistics, many kind comments were left to show the appreciation of those that had used the conference facilities. As there are too many to list, we thought we would select a few of our favourites to give you an indication of just what the overall impression of Sorby House, its staff and facilities are:

“A very airy, spacious room. Very comfortable for a lengthy meeting. The buffet was excellent; we will be using the facilities again.”

“A very nice and relaxing meeting room. Would recommend we use it again.”

The reception staff (Tom & Roy) were extremely helpful when organising our open day and also during the event. A big thank you for all the things that were loaned to us for the event and also the room for prayers.”

“Thank you very much. Very flexible, helpful and pleasant. Overall a great community building. We will be back.”

 If you would like a more detailed account of the statistics and comments that we garnered through our feedback forms, please feel free to email us at enquiries@bndfc.co.uk and we will happily send them with any further information on Burngreave’s first class contemporary mixed space building.

We would like to welcome several new tenants who have moved in to offices at Sorby House since the New Year.

Chartwell Healthcare, You Study and Jabir Ahmad have moved in during January and February while Morgan Dias Immigration Consultants are due to move in to their office in March.

This continues the progress Sorby House has made over the past 12 months which, despite the economic climate, has seen steadily climbing occupancy levels for our office space.