In May, and for the first time in Clarion history, we hosted a virtual residents' event to shine a light on the wide range of services and opportunities we offer and give our residents the chance to ask us questions, while celebrating just some of the inspiring stories to emerge from our communities.
The event, brought together some of our most knowledgeable staff and Board members from across Clarion, including David Orr, Chair of the Housing Association Board, and Clare Miller, Chief Executive of Clarion Housing Group, which offered residents an opportunity to put a face to some of our most senior names. The event was brought to life with a series of videos, many including home footage by our residents and staff.
More than 3,000 people registered to the event via our dedicated online portal and 799 residents joined us live on the night from across the country and the comfort of their homes. For those who don't have a digital presence, we offered a dial in and listen along telephone option and playback recording of the entire event.
Opening the evening, David Orr, said: At Clarion, we usually get together through a number of face-to-face activities, such as our resident engagement days. Of course, those things have been postponed this year so we hope this online event will go some way to helping us all to keep in touch.
In a year that has been dominated by the Covid-19 pandemic, with local and national restrictions generating challenges for everyone, Clare Miller reflected on the way residents have pulled together throughout the crisis, and that Clarion staff have worked creatively to adapt the services residents rely on.
Clare said: I've also learned that people are often amazingly resilient and creative when faced with a real crisis. And that when we are up against it, we can change things quickly, such as when we set everyone up to work from home at the start of the pandemic and how we've managed to move lots of resident involvement activity online.
I want to make sure that we keep this flexibility, agility and can do attitude and that it informs how we deliver services in the future. I also want to try to keep the camaraderie and real concern for our neighbours that we've seen really blossom over the last year in so many of our communities.
Michelle Reynolds, Clarion's Chief Operating Officer, presented our new and modernised resident involvement strategy, which has been informed by resident feedback and offers many ways for you to get involved. The strategy embeds at its heart more ways you can have your say and shape our services digitally, offering more flexibility, as well as face-to-face options. The resident involvement team are also offering digital inclusion training if you need a helping hand accessing our online services. Get in touch with the team.
With the pandemic changing the way we live, communicate and work, the event also provided an insight into the work Clarion has delivered to support residents and communities during the past 15 months, our long-term vision for your homes, and the services and support you can call on whenever you need them. Viewers were also given an update on operations and repairs, and crucial fire and building safety works.
In addition, as part of Clarion ongoing commitment to maintaining transparent and consistent engagement, prior to the event we invited residents to send in their questions to the panel. By the end of the evening, a mammoth 1,205 questions were submitted, and several were answered live during the event. For those questions we didn't get to, the most commonly asked have been split into themes and are addressed here.
Thank you to everyone who attended on the evening and to those who caught up with our playback options later on. Take a look at our highlights video below.
