Christmas comes early at RBLI

A Christmas party for children with disabilities was held this week in memory of David Rowlands, MBE a former director of RBLI. The children enjoyed party food, face painting, an entertainment show and meeting Santa and his reindeers.

Special thanks to everyone involved at M4S, for their help inviting the families involved and much appreciated help on the day.

It was a fabulous day and a great finish to 2011.

A Festive Update

In the run up to the festive season, I’m pleased to report that we remain very much on track with delivery of the Strategy we launched earlier this year. There have been a number of successes which demonstrate this. We have continued to support the work of the Army Recovery Capability, having just hosted a further assessment and training course. Our training team has delivered a number of LifeWorks courses and we are proud to report that delegates from these courses are now moving into employment and further vocational training.

Our training team has delivered a number of LifeWorks courses and we are proud to report that delegates from these courses are now moving into employment and further vocational training.

Social Enterprise has recently secured a contract to provide services to the MOD as well as adding a number of new customers for signs, mail house, printing and fulfilment services to its portfolio. The number of customers supported into work through Work Programme continues to grow and we have successfully implemented two Access to Work contracts for the delivery of workplace assessments across the South of England, London and the Home Counties.

Our Property Services team have been invited to tender to provide grounds maintenance work around Kent and a new and exciting project which will provide employment for ex Service, ex offenders that we will deliver in partnership with Blue Sky will now go live in Spring 2012. The Welfare and Healthcare Team continue to support an increasing number of beneficiaries with high quality care, accommodation, advice and guidance.

The latest K’nex ‘Big Build’ project, which has generated much interest and intrigue over the last few weeks will be unveiled early in the New Year when it finally reaches its destination in Houston, Texas. We look forward to providing more detail on this project in January, including information and video footage relating to the build process.

We look forward to providing more detail on this project in January, including information and video footage relating to the build process.

I’d like to wish all our customers, partners and friends a very Happy Christmas and New Year. Thank you for your ongoing support; I look forward to working with all of you to continue our Strategy delivery in 2012.

Christmas Baubles Image by Petr Kratochvil

RBLI video content now online

I am excited to reveal that RBLI now have several videos available to view online: http://www.youtube.com/user/RBLIndustries/videos.

This content will be increasing into the New Year, as we aim to raise the profile of our various charitable and commercial activities. This dynamic platform will be utilised to allow potential clients to preview and meet the people behind our services, such as our training courses for the Armed Forces or our Leatherhead based printing, mailing and distribution projects.

You can vote for the RBLI service you would most like to see video content for here: http://on.fb.me/uQqIGs

Farewell to a familiar ‘friend'

Today we said goodbye to something which has become a very familiar sight here at RBLI.    Following the successful build of the world’s tallest toy train track from Tomica pieces at St Pancras station earlier this year (video here), we’ve just completed our biggest 'bigbuild' yet out of K’NEX peices which is now en route to America for unveiling.   

You can keep up to date with RBLI's BIGGEST special assembly project yet, on our Twitter or Facebook pages. More information to follow!

More successes for our Social Enterprise

I’m also pleased to report that our Social Enterprise has achieved yet more success!   We’ve just been accredited a preferred supplier to Carillion plc.   

One of the key factors to our success as a Social Enterprise is that we operate on a par with any other organisation when competing for business, which means that quality accreditations and approved supplier status are vital elements in terms of differentiation and added value.    We know we do a great job but it’s always a major boost for us to have this recognised by external organisations. We have a long term aim to provide more employment opportunities at RBLI and becoming an approved supplier to Carillion is yet another step in our journey to achieving this.

Great results for our beneficiaries

Last week, we were delighted to hand over the keys to one of our houses to an ex Ghurka soldier,  now resident in the UK.   Yuvaraj moved into the village with his family following a period of rehabilitation resulting from an illness.  The Army Welfare Services pulled together a number of charities and support services, including Social Services, Army Benevolent Fund, St Dunstans and Help for Heroes to ensure Yuvaraj has everything he needs to live independently.   

This has been a great example of charities and local services working together to achieve practical results for our beneficiaries.  We welcome Yuvaraj and his family to the village and wish them well.

Iain Duncan Smith Visit

Last Friday we welcomed The Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and Tracey Crouch MP for Chatham and Aylesford.  The Minister met many RBLI employees as we explained how our model of a Social Enterprise fits neatly into the Big Society Agenda.    The Minister also had an opportunity to meet some of the Armed Forces personnel who had sustained life changing injuries or illness attending our LifeWorks course.   They explained to him how the vocational assessment and employability training they had received during the week would help them to understand their employment options and compete more effectively for civilian work opportunities.   

We were able to feedback to the Minister some suggestions to enable us all to offer the widest range of services to former Armed Forces personnel

At the same time we hosted a meeting of representatives from KCC, Jobcentre Plus, G4S and Service Charities; including the Poppy Factory and Royal British Legion to explore how organisations could work together more effectively to improve access to services for former Armed Forces personnel seeking work.  We were able to feedback to the Minister some suggestions for quick and easy wins that would ensure better data capture and integration of services to enable us all to offer the widest range of services to former Armed Forces personnel.  Thus ensuring we can work together to help meet the principles of the Military Covenant.

The Secretary of State displayed a genuine feel and understanding of the work of RBLI.  He interacted positively with everyone he met and the visit was a most positive stimulus for all.  

Lord Lieutenant of Kent Visit

RBLI’s new President is The Viscount De L’Isle,  Lord- Lieutenant of Kent.  Royal British Legion Industries was honoured to welcome The Lord- Lieutenant and The Viscountess De L’Isle to Aylesford on Wednesday 23^rd November.  The Lord -Lieutenant spoke with staff in the Social Enterprise Signs Department and produced his own sign.

As a former officer in the Grenadier Guards, Lord De L’Isle was particularly interested in meeting the staff and students on the LifeWorks course.  This course provides vocational assessment, information and advice to Veterans with disabilities or health conditions.

The final part of the tour was a visit to RBLI’s high dependency care home, Gavin Astor House and the assisted living home, Queen Elizabeth Court.  Linda Alder, Head of Healthcare and Welfare hosted this visit which included a satisfactory ‘room inspection’ of former Chief Accountant of TRBL, John Riggs.