The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO) has moved their Elgin office to The Park House Business Centre.

SCVO supports people to take voluntary action to help themselves and others to bring about social change.  They are the national body for Scotland’s charities, voluntary organisations and social enterprises.

By working in partnership with the voluntary sector they advance shared values and interests through lobbying and campaigning for the people, communities and members they support.

We are very pleased to have them at Park House, there are still a couple of offices left, please contact us if you are interested.

CCL Consultancy Ltd is a financial consultancy firm based in Scotland offering commercial brokering services across the UK. They opened their new office at Park House a little over a month ago.

They specialise in providing bespoke financial solutions for a wide variety of commercial projects across all categories of business. Quite simply they source financial solutions for your business, to ensure you continue to grow and develop in line with your ambitions.

They have over 20 years banking and commercial experience and pride themselves on high success rates for their clients and excellent customer service. They are completely independent so will always achieve the best results for you. They take their role seriously and always comply and work within the NACFB (National Association of Commercial Finance Brokers) Code of Practice.

They work with clients in need of support in the following areas: Re-financing, funding for expansion, raising working capital, new projects, assisting with cash flow and purchase of high value items.

They know the products available and have an extensive network of lenders who they work with directly.

The most valuable asset for anyone running a business is time, by letting them take responsibility for your financial requirements you are immediately saving valuable time.

Raising finance does not need to be difficult or stressful, they match you to the right lenders with the right products efficiently and smoothly.

Coralie Pickering, director of CCL Consultancy LTD, said the business centre facilitated the firm’s expansion plans.

“Basing ourselves in Park House is now giving us the perfect environment to grow our business further with the added benefits of having excellent business services on hand. We very much look forward to seeing all our clients at Park House and exploring the networking opportunities a Business Centre such as Park House is going to offer,” she said.

www.cclconsulting.co.uk

We are pleased to announce that Graeme Fraser & Co who have been in Park House for the last 11 years has decided to stay in the building. The company was taken over by The Long Partnership (based in Orkney) in May 2011. The firm of accountants will be occupying 8 offices in the building, with their own reception and meeting room, as they hope to expand their Elgin business over the next few years.

The Long Partnership has offices throughout North Scotland including Orkney, Thurso, Inverness & Elgin, founded in 2001 they are continuing to expand and prosper.

They said they were pleased to be continuing a connection with the local landmark property during “an exciting new chapter” in its history.

At TLP we want to bring value to you and your business. Our approach is different from that of many other accountants. We like to think of ourselves more as your business adviser. We do all the usual stuff that accountants are expected to do, but we go further, often assisting in areas beyond the traditional accounting services.

The first thing that we want to do is to get to know you and your business. A little time taken at the start helps us find ways to help you, and possibly in areas where you did not expect help. This part of our service is free, so we can take our time to understand your problems and frustrations and this lets us explore ways that we may be able to help.

Our promise to you – We will never do work that is not necessary and that does not produce value to you that is clearly in excess of the cost.

www.thelongpartnership.co.uk

Now that the winter is over and it is no longer vital to have the radiators on full blast we have taken the opportunity to replace the ailing boiler at Park House. The 20+ year old lump had been installed when Park House was still a hotel.  A hotel which had en suite bathrooms, all with baths or showers which had been fed from a huge hot water tank. Even though Park House had been used as offices for the past 10 years, and no longer needed so much hot water this tank has been heated constantly for over a decade, and was probably used for nothing more than a tap to wash hands now and again!

It took 5 hours to drain the hot water tank from a bathroom tap, it has now been replaced with a much smaller properly insulated tank! If this had been done 10 years ago when the building was converted into offices over £10,000 could have been saved in wasted gas bills.

The new boiler we have put in is an A rated boiler, this in addition to the new loft insulation, smaller water tank and new vertical radiators should reduce the carbon footprint from now on.

Each office has a digital thermostatic valve on the radiator, allowing the tenant to set the temperature they want the room to be at, this means when one room reaches temperature the radiator will switch off, more easily allowing the other room to reach the desired temperature and switch off too. This reduces the load on the boiler and reduces waste.

We have used LED lighting throughout the building, with each office being lit with a number of 4w SMD LED bulbs we imported from China. The halls, landings and bathrooms are also lit with a selection of 1-4w LED bulbs.  Again this has all been done to reduce energy use.

Shepherd Chartered Surveyors has opened a new office in The Park House Business Centre to offer both commercial and residential survey and valuation work as its programme of investment in the expansion of its branch network throughout Scotland continues apace.

Headed up by Shepherd partner David Ferguson, the new office is Shepherd’s thirty second branch.

Commenting on the new office opening, Ferguson, who has worked in the area since 1986, said: “I’m delighted to reinforce our presence in Morayshire at a time when there are encouraging signs that we are starting to emerge from the recession.

“A chief motivation behind the opening of our Elgin office is to provide a more local service to our clients based in Morayshire and, to that end, our new office will offer commercial and residential surveys and valuation work to complement our offices in Inverness, Fraserburgh, Peterhead and Aberdeen.”

The firm already has a large client base in the Morayshire area and it is hoped the local presence in Elgin will enable this to grow even further.

David Ferguson, chartered surveyor with J&E Shepherd, said the company had been hunting for the right office space in Moray for some time.

“We saw this as being the perfect fit for us, to be honest. We are trying to make our business more efficient, with the IT and everything else, and we saw what was being done here and it really did just tick all the boxes. We’ve set up, initially, on quite a small scale but we have the flexibility of expanding here as well and doing it on quite a low staff cost basis – that was one of the main attractions.”

www.shepherd.co.uk

We’ve begun the process of picking and pointing the front of Park House.  We decided to do this as half the building had been pointed in the past with cement, which is bad for a sandstone building & because it was looking a bit tatty.

A local stonemason is currently doing the work to pick and point the building with lime mortar, this is what would have originally been used during its construction 193 years ago.

Lime mortar is one of the oldest types of mortar, used as far back as ancient Rome.  Since the introduction of cement it has been used less and less, however there are advantages to using lime mortar especially with older stone buildings, which have only recently become understood.  Lime mortar is softer and more porous which allows the building to breathe and reduces dampness which causes damage to the sandstone.  We felt replacing the cement was important to look after the building.

The stonework has had a clean as well & with the new mortar will look fantastic when we get it floodlit later this year.

Work will shortly begin on the roof, which is needing some attention.

During the renovations of Park House it was necessary for us to employ a number of skilled people to carry out the works.  We were so impressed with some of these people that we decided to keep them on permanently.  As a result we are very pleased to now be able to offer domestic and commercial painting & decorating services in Moray.

We decided to use a minimal amount of plasterboard at Park House, and instead hired experienced plasterers to restore walls, cornices and ceiling roses throughout the building. We even re-lathed sections including an entire staircase to try to keep the fabric of the building as close to original as possible.  We now offer these plastering services in Moray.

We have already taken on work for a number of clients, and will be growing this new part of our business over the coming months.  You are welcome to view the quality of our work by visiting Park House, if you are interested in getting a quote please give us a call.

More information can be found on www.gairland.com/services.html.

One of our new tenants at The Park House Business Centre has written a short statement. The Cornerstones Group is a collaboration between 7 of the UK’s foremost experts in Corporate Psychology, whose distinct specialist areas complement each other, forming a comprehensive jigsaw of leading-edge expertise across the entire field of optimising people’s performance at work.

Sharman Hague  MSc., MBPsS, MAC, MEMCC.
Corporate Psychologist, The Cornerstones Group

Today we open the doors of Park House (on schedule), even though there are a few finishing touches to be done, with the last of the carpets being fitted today and tomorrow. This is just a quick note, we will post a full article in the next few days with more information.  In the meantime here are a few photos and a few updates.

J & E Shepherd a national firm of surveyors are moving in to their new office later today.  Next week another two offices are being moved in to, which we will provide more details of later.

The first bookings for our meeting room are coming in, please let us know if you would like more information on the facilities we provide.

We will shortly begin work on the cafe which we hope to open in May.  There are still a few offices available, which we will start advertising next week now they are finished.  If you would like to view them prior to this please get in touch.

We are now just under a month away from the opening of The Park House Business Centre.  Work is well underway & is on schedule.  There has been a huge amount if interest in the offices, and many have now been let, we still have a few available so please get in touch soon if you are interested in renting an office.

One of our new tenants is a national company, with over 100 offices throughout the UK.  We are pleased that they have chosen to open a new Elgin office in our business centre.

Our first virtual office customers are signed up, they were looking for a local presence and address, the solution we provided suited them well.

Virtual Offices @ Park House
At the Park House Business Centre we offer the virtual office service, imagine rather than listing your home address as your business premises, (where everyone with Google Maps can see where you live) you could just use ours?

Out of the office too much?  Whilst you are busy out and about dealing with your clients, don’t miss an opportunity, our professional receptionist can take your calls and messages.

Need to impress a client? Book a meeting room, have our staff treat you like the boss and make a lasting impression.

You can have your mail sent here, where it is securely stored until you collect it or have it forwarded to another address.

Combine as many of the features we offer as you like, answering your calls, using our mailing address, and use of an impressive meeting room whenever you need it. You can start your business with the advantages of a prestigious location, an assistant & a place to meet your clients.  All the benefits, at a fraction of the cost.  Give us a call to discuss your requirements.

More details will follow in the next few weeks along with some photos.