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'Living It' - September 2009

BEST leaders of the month for September were Dave Thomas & Simon Withey from ICF Resources within the Chief Executive Directorate and Helen Millington from Sutton Coldfield Constituency office in Housing & Constituencies.

Dave Thomas & Simon Withey were nominated by Caroline Hobbs who felt that they constantly come up with new ideas for their workshops and actions, keeping it fresh for their team and making it relevant for all staff. One of the ways in which they have achieved this is by introducing a quarterly staff forum, they always ensure they find new and interesting ideas and speakers for the events. They also challenge behaviours which weaken trust within the team, leaving their colleagues safe in the knowledge that they can speak openly and honestly in their working environment.

Helen Millington was nominated by her manager Gill Taylor for her tireless work on the Leonard Cheshire Sensory Garden project. Helen managed the project from start to finish including successful bids to Dragons’ Den and municipal charities, convincing councillors to get their hands dirty, working with the BEST programme team and the community. Helen always encourages her BEST team to have fun with their actions such as the BEST bag around the world. Gill felt that Helen’s leadership of the BEST programme in her service area had created a real sense of belief and unified the team.

Team of the month for September 2009 was the Exclusions Team from Children, Young People & Families Directorate who were nominated by team member, Rebecca Taylor. This team do not let the negative aspects of their service area get them down and use their wicked sense of humour to always find ways of having a good day. They get a real buzz from providing an excellent service and seek customer feedback to create service improvements; they are currently piloting a performance indicator questionnaire which was designed by two team members. Rebecca said every member of the team contributes to make their success and takes great pride in what they do, they always go over and above to provide the information required and if they don’t have the answers they will do the research rather than passing the buck.

Winning the Senior Leader of the month award was Chris Jordan, Constituency Director for Selly Oak who was nominated by Teresa Evans. Chris inspires people to embrace the opportunity to have their say and make a change to their working environment through BEST and their workshops. He gets involved in team workshops and oversees actions to ensure that solutions to barriers and problems are found. Chris always recognises people’s achievements and publicly says thank you for a job well done and the hard work of his staff. Quite simply the BEST values are at the heart of Chris’ work ethos.

Congratulations to all our winners on their success. If you would like to nominate someone or are looking for more information regarding the Monthly “Living It” Awards please contact Lucy L Kenny on 0121 675 1579, email BEST, check out our inline pages or go to the 'Living It' Awards section on this website.