End of year newsletter….
It's a year of expansion for Hill Cannon...

After 37 years at Royal Chambers we have outgrown the office and despite taking additional space in 2005 the sustained growth of the practice means that with no space for any newcomers an alternative needed to be found.  Our new office will be at Clarendon House just 200m down Station Parade and right on the edge of the town’s central area in a newly refurbished office building.

With an entire floor featuring full air conditioning we can establish a modern 'state of the art' office with a planned environment to facilitate the project based teams of variable size to meet our clients’ various needs. This exciting move will occur in a phased relocation starting February and if all goes to plan....complete by April. Whilst we have had a great time at Royal Chambers the evolution from drawing boards and Rotring pens to flat screen workstations means that we need to look to the future and strive to be ever more efficient to meet the demands which seem to want ever more in a shorter time frame.

Also with Reading’s expansion Keith has donned a hard hat whilst Paul conducted a health and safety audit and demountable partitions were found to be just that and a re-planned office will allow for the creation of more workstations to welcome Bob, Chris, Alan and maybe Rupal from the sad closure of the KRA practice.  The experienced gained will strengthen our small projects division.

It was with great sadness that we heard of Mike Wilford’s sudden death and we expressed our sympathy to his family.  Mike had joined Jim Hill and John Cannon as a youth and had 30 years with us rising to a partner before leaving to embark on a new consultancy venture only last year.

We have had a very busy year and we can now say without exception that the professional and dedicated  performance of all colleagues will ensure that the high reputation of Hill Cannon will be maintained.  We have had a few projects subject to lengthy lead in periods with this trend in consultants being dragged into the speculative role to assist in what becomes fast construction programmes once signed up which has stretched us but we matched the challenge and expect a good end to our financial year.

We know that we have some unrealistic expectations from clients who may not fully appreciate the process that we undertake for the preparation of a design and then the development of working details for construction but it is our role to manage expectation whilst ensuring that we do not cut corners unwisely and maintain the quality control which has seen us create precious few omissions, a testament to our corporate professionalism for which you can all be justly proud.

We continue to have a high workload from our car park projects and are involved at some stage with a significant number of the country’s parking projects with schemes in Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool, Newcastle, Birmingham, Luton, Colchester, Aylesbury, Wakefield, Edinburgh and the list goes on.

With our presence as specialists in the sphere of all things parking we can expect a busy workload and will continue to develop new ideas improve designs and not rest on our laurels. We have had an interesting mix of projects from major schools developments and residential schemes, to offices and refurbishments.  We are working on new hotel and leisure projects both large and small and a few quirky ones like the BMX stunt ramps design.

The 2008 outlook is very positive with a continuation of the current workload projected well into the New Year.

OUR CHRISTMAS LUNCH AT RUDDING PARK, FRIDAY 14 DECEMBER 2007

Strangely, John and Mike were less than chuffed when told they could NOT have seconds

Kurt’s table patiently wait for more wine…

Keith’s superglue trick works a treat on his hat..

Somebody told Dave C he was footing the bill..

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Reading Office have experienced some welcome expansion in both staff and workload this year and looking forward into next year there is more on the way.

This year looking around the office it is odd to realise that almost all our current staff started with us this year! I have been pleased to welcome a couple of ex-colleagues, Jim Clifton and more recently, Bob Knights. John Filburn and Adam Whiting are also recent newcomers and have previously worked alongside Jim and Bob respectively.

Come the New Year we have two more new staff members to welcome, Alan Abraham, a Senior Engineer, and Chris Bailey, CAD Technician. These guys will take our total number to 14. Recruitment efforts are, as always, continuing to maintain pace with Client’s expectations and experience of our professional service.

Our office Christmas celebration this year was held on a long table at the local Loch Fyne Restaurant, a converted wharfhouse on the River Kennet. It was enjoyed by all.

All at Reading Office are looking forward to 2008 ……….but are concerned about the dessert