The 2,000 people who work at Lingfield Point already know the many benefits of being based at ‘the best postcode in town’ and it’s no exaggeration to say it’s not just where they work . . . it’s a way of life.

Eddie Humphries, estate manager and our new concierge team are ready to say hello

Just to make it even better the business park is now supported by a team of concierge staff on hand 24/7 to meet ‘n’ greet, direct and assist customers and visitors alike.

They’re easy to spot in their distinctive uniforms with their smiley-faced philosophy of providing ‘service excellence’ at all times.

It’s no accident the concierge idea was borrowed from the hotel and hospitality industry – customer service is all.

Plasma screens have been installed at the entrances to provide a colourful welcome. And ‘concierge’ packs containing all the information anyone could ever need to know about life at Lingfield are available.

As well as the concierge service Lingfield Point has first class security – delivered in a typically understated and discreet way via CCTV cameras, automatic entry barriers and automatic number plate recognition.

So it’s not just about finding a place to do business that’ll do, that suits or that fits… it’s about finding a place you LOVE.

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The business park -  well known for creative office space to rent in Darlington- launched its new jogging trail after teaming up with charity Diabetes UK to celebrate the event.

Lingfield Point's new jogging trail is now available

We think that keeping fit is an important part of daily life, and our jogging track is designed to offer the opportunity and encourage our customers here at Lingfield Point to enjoy some healthy exercise.

We’re proud to have created a unique partnership with Diabetes UK, helping us launch our new jogging track as well as to promote awareness of diabetes type 2, which can be related to an unhealthy lifestyle.

Eddie Humphries, our estate manager, was one of the first to be assessed, “We’ve offered our Lingfield Point people ‘mini MOTs’ to find out if they could be at risk and what they can do about it including measuring body mass index.  Diabetes UK have also been giving people tips on how to live a healthy lifestyle, including recipes and menus.  Joining forces with Lighterlife, one of Lingfield Point’s latest customers, customers also received advice on healthy eating and slimming.”

The Student Loans Company’s Anthony Hill and Donna Slater bravely volunteered to run a circuit of the jogging track before having their BMI measured.

Student Loans Company is now the biggest employer based at Lingfield Point where more than 50 companies and 2,000 people are now based.

DSA manager Anthony said: “Diabetes type 2 is a growing issue in this country, and can have serious implications for people who suffer from it. Taking regular exercise is just one of the many things you can do to help make sure you avoid this difficult and life-changing condition.

“But the last thing we want to do is sound preachy – that’s why we are so pleased that Lingfield Point has come up with this fun way of taking a bit of exercise and getting the message across.

Our fitness camps - complete with giggles

”Lingfield Point has already launched successful Happy Boot Camp which is proving very popular with our staff and are just very enjoyable, where people get together to exercise and have a laugh.”

Eddie said: “We’ll be inviting Diabetes UK back to the business park during Diabetes Week from June 10 – 16 to do some follow-ups and find out how people are doing in their efforts to improve their health.”

*More information about Diabetes UK is available at www.diabetes.org.uk.

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When asked why they liked their offices at Lingfield Point so much our customer replied “Because they have soul.”

Offices with Soul…..  there’s something you don’t get every day!

So what is it that gives one building soul and another none? We concluded that part of this must be to do with the building’s heritage; when a building has very obviously had a previous life (in Lingfield Point’s case a wool factory) and when that past is celebrated in its present form the result can be very special. Another ingredient of offices with soul must be the amount of love and attention to detail lavished on its creation and crucial aftercare.

Marchday – owners of Lingfield Point -  don’t create average offices – just look around our neighbourhood or take a peak at the offices at New Lodge, Windsor (www.newlodge.co.uk). Set in 55 acres of beautifully landscaped grounds this Victorian Manor House was built in 1857 and just oozes soul.

“Basing your business at Lingfield Point is more than a business decision, it’s a lifestyle choice.” says John Orchard, Director at Marchday, “Where else can you work wirelessly, surrounded by beautiful art, stimulating games or enjoying a peaceful escape in a vintage retro snug? ”

So there you are – soul just one of the differences that make our offices just a little bit better than the rest!

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Futurescope's latest image at Lingfield Point

The thought-provoking, head-turning image ‘Skep’ – all 45 ft of it – looks down from our North East corner and will be seen by thousands of motorists each day.

Our artists Christian Barnes and John Kennedy from Vista Projects  are reluctant to try to explain the concept – preferring to allow people to come up with their own theories – and we’d love to hear all about them.

The image shows a man with a ‘Skep’ – a traditional beehive – on his head surrounded by beekeeping equipment – very appropriate as Lingfield Point has its own hives and harvests its own honey.

Lingfield Point offers much more than the best office space in Darlington it offers a way of life that makes it much more interesting, exciting and pleasant to go to work every day.

Art is integral to Lingfield Life and we believe it is all about generating interest and conversation, Skep will certainly do that.

We see Lingfield Point as our own 107 acre gallery and you’ll find lots of art dotted about both inside and outside helping to make Lingfield Point somewhere our customers just LOVE to work.

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Spring into Summer at Lingfield Point

With a great social calendar and employee support – including great transport links – we’re always keen to welcome new colleagues, friends and visitors whether its for business or pleasure.  Our latest events are based around preparing the ground for a blooming good Summer!

With our allotments now in place, we can now turn our attention to our herb garden outside of the delicious on-site cafe – canteen by alexandar macmurray.  Tasty herbs to garnish that add flavour to our lives are now available for people snip and enjoy – with recipes also available for inspiration in the vintage snug.

If you fancy creating your own home herb garden, why not visit canteen on 24 April where our gardening team from Integritas Landscapes will be able to give advice on how to create this simple little attention to life.  With delicious results!

Enjoy garden herbs

Adding colour and life to Lingfield is our simple aim and gardening is close to our heart.  We’re keen to hear your tips and advice on how to survive the last remaining frosts and the deluge of April showers….. Our tips include:

• Keep new shoots protected at night
• Leave tender bedding until May – its too tempting to fill your garden with colour now but Jack Frost is still very much around
• Deadhead daffodils and narsissus, give them a liquid feed or sprinkling of bonemeal and then let them die down. Don’t cut off the leaves as they are necessary to replenish the bulb for next year.
• Keep deadheading spring bedding to keep it looking neat and encourage new flowers.
• Continue with the spring cleaning. Hoe your borders, getting rid of weeds before they take hold and continue to mulch away – tease with a cheeky bit of fertiliser to encourage growth!
• Carry on removing moss and weeds from paths, terraces and drives.
• Clean and repair your garden tools, perfect for Sunday afternoon when April showers hit!
• Look out for slugs and snails. They love tulips and delicacies such as the delicious young shoots of delphiniums and the like, so use pet-friendly slug pellets, drench the ground around hostas with liquid slug killer to exterminate slugs below the surface.
• Keep an eye out for snails and pick them off – what you do with them is up to you. Birds are your friends here – flat stones artfully located are useful accessories for birds to practise their snail bashing techniques.

With these tips and handy advice with our gardening team – get ready for a unique summer of celebration.  For more information or want a copy of our events calendar, feel free to get in touch with one of us at the management suite on 01325 486486 or download from the link below.

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Great support for our new boot camps

Our social calendar – packed full of events and promotions is really starting to gain momentum.  We’ve now launched our new Happy Fit Camps – a unique boot camp with a difference.   Rather than pushing yourself sweating blood and tears, we’ve developed a new way of losing weight .. through the joy of laughter.  Our happy fit camps make losing weight a giggle.

We’ve decided to take a softer approach with our boot camps – adding laughter into the mix – ensuring that firm friendships are made during the trials and tribulations trying to shift that weight.

Giggling ... a great tonic to ease stress

Created in conjunction with Get Fit Military, our first session certainly challenged.  Biting wind and rain didn’t stop over 30 people attending and as you can see from the pics …. the camp certainly lived up to its name.

Matt Stirland from Get Fit Military was amazed by the turn out: “We’ve had over 30 people come to our first session – in the all the years of running boot camps across the Tees Valley, this is the highest number of attendees for a first session. Laughter certainly seems to have makes a difference. The support shows that the social scene is alive and kicking at Lingfield Point”

A fab start to our happy fit camps - proving laughter is a great tonic

We’re delighted that our customers have embraced life at lingfield and our happy fit camps and we’re looking forward to launching our new jogging trail in May in conjunction with Diabetes UK. 

Our Happy Fit Camps now take place every Wednesday from 6pm at Lingfield Point.

For more information and join in the fun, call Matt Stirland on 07816782357 or follow him on twitter @getfit_military.

www.militaryfitnessgroup.com

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Lingfield Point represents office space in Darlington but we’re so much more than than that!  We think of Lingfield Point as a neighbourhood of friends and colleagues rather than offices and Herman has settled right in helping to bond teams, create conversations and even swop tips on how to nurture this fine fella and bring him alive with different recipe tales!

Herman, is in fact, a weird concoction handed out in the school playground or around friends to celebrate friendship. A perfect home here at Lingfield Point.  Unable to be purchased, it’s the equivalent of a chain letter – but – it’s far easier and he provides you with very tasty results!

Say hello to Herman

So how did Herman arrive?  Did he come by the new bus service? Car share with friends or walk in?  Nope, he came in a tub … with a very traditional and old time instruction sheet telling me to talk to him (for those that know me… they know that this is far from difficult!)….. stir and nurture every day for 10 days before breaking up into 4 sections and then giving away 3 and cooking the rest…… So instead of chain letter.. think chain cake!

It’s a great way of nurturing the long lost art of working with yeast and more importantly providing something of substance for the younger ones to enjoy – developing patience and an understanding the art of cooking with real ingredients.  In fact, there’s been so much chatting in our house, Herman’s become part of the family – with a delicious contribution back!

The name Herman is taken from the Amish – sweet, cinnamon-flavoured bread – taken from the early American pioneers. The current Herman revival is gathering momentum and with the help of online mums groups; and the rise of a wide range of online networks we think its great to help and encourage people to are being encouraged to waste less and share more.

In summary, Herman has bought great fun into our world, its taught us to look at real ingredients and do something we don’t do very often… watch our waste and share surplus food!  In these times of stupidly over-packaged products… its a great way of getting back to making and sharing!

I think we’ll continue to watch our waste and sadly, given the results of this tasty cake, we’ll be watching our waistline too!

Let us know if you fancy meeting and making Herman…..

We can certainly provide you with a tub of this sticky stuff!

Related articles:

• Herman – the friendship cake – http://www.hermanthegermanfriendshipcake.com/
• Herman blog – the guardian – http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2011/nov/30/a-friendship-cake-called-herman

• Spring into Summer with our new event calendar – now available (lingfieldpoint.co.uk)

Getting ready for growing again at Lingfield Point

Kendra Ullyart, organiser of this unique partnership said: ” We want to make it easy for people to take up an allotment. We know that allotments in general have a high drop out rate in the first year because people panic when they realise how much work they involve but thats why we have created smaller raised beds to let people just come in and start growing.

“We are trying to provide everything they need to make it as simple as possible.”

The initial 24 plots at the site have been filled, including a number taken over by community groups such as the Red Hall Fishing Group, which works with young people on the estate.

Garry Donald, 19, a youth worker, said: “I’ve signed up about ten kids to come and work over here and I know someone else had about eight coming over. It’s a good place for them to come and get a bit of exercise and away from the streets with all the messing about that goes on. Its a brilliant idea.”

Anyone who would like to sign up for an allotment at the GroZone can email kendraullyart@talktalk.net

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The advertiser : community allotments at Lingfield Point

New events calendar - out now

We’re keen on ensuring that colleagues get the best from their life at Lingfield Point so we’ve developed a Summer calendar – packed full of events, promotions and entertainment throughout the coming months.

To get you in the mood, look out for our Life at Lingfield event calendar – download below or pop into one of our many break out areas and pick up a leaflet.

We’re welcoming Choc Choc Hurray on 4/5 April in canteen where you’ll be able to taste chocolate from a chocolate fountain and experience the production of chocolate first hand. With tasty treats also available to buy, you can also experience the more unusual flavours from around the globe. Look out for the exquisite chocolate shoes – beautiful to look at but even better to eat!

Enjoying Easter could have a detrimental effect on the waistline, so we’re also pleased to announce that our fitness boot camps and exercise classes are making a welcome return with a twist.

Our new look boot camp

Lingfield Point’s happy fit camp is a cheeky take on the fitness boot camps of the past. Always full of smiles but with a force to be reckoned with, you can enjoy this challenge from 18 April and watch your waist reappear – just in time for the summer sun.

For people that prefer a more relaxed lingfield life, why not look out for our new monthly textile masterclasses – helping you to get crafty or even join our new knitting group – Stitching Knitwits – meeting in canteen every Wednesday from 25 April.

So what are you waiting for – come and enjoy life at Lingfield!

LPD2135_Calendar2

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Creative workspace at SLC

Lingfield Point is a significant supporter of both Foundation for Jobs and – as providers of office space and a crucial business bas in Darlington – we love to see and experience growth in our neighbourhood.  This opportunity offers a great chance for jobseekers to get a foot on the employment ladder.

This means we’ll see their employment base swell from 840 to a record 1,240 in July and August, bringing our combined workforce to a massive 2,500.

We’ll be working with Student Loans Company and Manpower to help raise awareness of how to get involved – so keep checking back to our blogs or for specific advice on the temporary jobs, email slrecruitment@manpower.co.uk or call 0191-221-1440.

We’re delighted to welcome more friends and colleagues to Lingfield Point – the more the merrier we say!!

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• http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/9611243.Student_Loans_Company_looks_to_recruit_400_temporary_workers_in_Darlington/