Housing Matters

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November 2010

The enewsletter of Marketing Impact | Design, Marketing & PR for the housing sector

VAT headache

How we can help you mitigate its effects. It’s estimated that the VAT hike which comes into effect from 4th January 2011 will cost associations over £125m, well we may not be able to save you that much, but let’s see how we can help.

For residents – by residents

With the new TSA guidelines in place, Family Housing wanted to involve residents in their tenants' annual report from the outset. As part of this, working with their Business Improvement and Communications team, we facilitated an initial workshop for residents to find out what they wanted to see in the report and how they wanted the information to be presented. From conversations, it became clear that residents were looking for a less formal approach. They wanted one document, with the option to see ‘more information’ in an alternative, more detailed paper.

R for resident

We worked with Regenda’s residents, consulting them at every stage on how their tenants’ annual report would look, feel and sound. The design was based on the success of their Market Day held during the summer, when over forty residents came together to challenge and shape the standards of service being delivered. Set in a mock-marketplace environment, residents were actively involved, using voting technology to give feedback.

Moving forward together

Specialists in disability housing and creating opportunities for disabled people, Habinteg embraces diversity with its focus being ‘because we’re all different’. Excited by this approach and ambition, our aspiration was to create a distinctly unique and visually attractive report, which displayed ‘togetherness’.

A report with character

Consultation with Paragon residents provided clear feedback on the look they wanted: impactful, bold colours with succinct, bulleted points, high quality images and light on copy for easy readability. We applied clear colour coding for each of the standards and pulled out one key achievement to support each standard.

From our point of view...

For the 3rd year running, MI has consulted with Soha’s residents to produce the Residents’ Annual Report 2009/10. Having involved and motivated Soha’s residents' and taught them basic design principles through workshops, they decided to produce an annual report entitled ‘Points of View’.

Clear and simple flourishes

Radian included its residents' in the design of their annual report for the first time this year. Determined to listen to what residents wanted to say, and to include only what residents wanted to include, MI facilitated workshops to open up the lines of communication and through a proven process, managed to encourage interaction and involvement from all residents present.