Pastures new!

On Friday 4th June, I had the opportunity to live out my fantasy as 'Nessa from "Gavin and Stacey". In the driver's seat of our rented truck, I pounded the lanes between Spencer's Wood and Riseley ferrying furniture from the old office to the new.

With the windows open I could see the appeal of the trucking life - even if our truck was rather smaller than the one ably piloted by 'Nessa on the BBC. Hefting desks and boxes of files up and down stairs was less appealing, but left us all with a sense of great satisfaction at the end of the day.

It's nearly three years since we moved out of my front room and into our little offices on Hyde End Road. That was a huge leap of faith, but the last few years have shown that it was a good move. The business has gone from strength to strength, and when we realised that the return of a member of staff from maternity leave would require us to install "bunk desks", a new office seemed like a good idea!

The new premises are a couple of miles further south Junction 11 of the M4, in the tranquil village of Riseley. Essentially, make for the old office but don't turn down Hyde End Road - just carry on until you get to Riseley Business Park. If you pass The Bull (our new local pub!), you've gone too far.

So what's so exciting about the new office? Apart from the acres of space (here it is, before the desks arrived)

to support our challenging five year growth plan, we also have the luxury of our own training room. Seating 10 in comfort, we will now be able to deliver commercial contract and negotiation workshops from our very own premises. A separate meeting room (here it is in all its glory!)

- gives us ample space for the breakout sessions on our negotiation workshop, and a little kitchen facilitates timely breaks.

Add to that our proximity to open countryside for some lunchtime walks, and a friendly landlord serving great 'pub grub' just across the road, and I think we'll be very happy here!

To celebrate our move, and launch some of the new services currently in the pipeline, we're having a 'bit of a do' on Thursday 1st July, from 6pm - 8pm. Invites are going in the post today, so if you haven't received yours soon, and would like to join us, please drop me a line - tiffany.kemp@devant.co.uk.