At Crystal Peaks in Sheffield, the Workman onsite property management team supports social value, including Free Friday Family Fun Days.
The Workman onsite team at Hermes-owned Crystal Peaks in Sheffield has delivered a varied and comprehensive programme of social value schemes over the past year, from facilitating Covid jabs to organising local food bank collections, from hosting school carol concerts to delivering pinecones for use in arts and sensory classes.
Here are just a few examples:
Liaising with community groups
Crystal Peaks has sponsored local football team the Beighton Magpies for many years. In June, the club needed a venue for its annual kit fitting day in a central location in the area to host the players and their families throughout the day. Crystal Peaks stepped up to the challenge and offered a vacant shop unit at no charge to the club.
More than 400 children and their families attended the centre for the club’s kit-fitting day as a result. The centre management team initiated and delivered the event. They also organised extra activities to recruit more children interested in joining the club.
Forging local family connections
For local families, Free Friday Family Fun Days were organised throughout the summer holidays. These events featured free sessions to learn skateboarding and climbing, as well as inflatables and bouncy castles. More than 800 children took part over the six Fridays.
This evolved into the centre’s ongoing weekly Game On family activities. A vacant unit was converted into a free family game space. Included activities were table tennis and football, chess, giant Jenga, Connect4 and other board games.
Centre owner Hermes funded the provision of the equipment. The facility was opened in July for the summer holidays and then subsequently at weekends and holidays. It has been very popular as a free way to spend quality family time together. In particular, during the cost-of-living crisis.
Since then, the centre management team collaborated with local authority Youth Services for potential use in enhanced youth engagement in 2023.
Reaching out to local charities
For a six-month period, the team invited the Sheffield Lord Mayor’s local youth disability charity to use a vacant shop space and fittings. The shop was staffed by local volunteers and also provided valuable work experience for more than 30 disabled young people working in the store.
The venture raised more than £20,000 for the charity and nine months of rates mitigation for the client, while also generating local PR exposure for the charity.
