Best foot forward! Team Bastows supporting Maggie's Centres

Bastows have a fine tradition of supporting various charities through others doing great things- and so now we have decided to get active and be the fundraisers! We have chosen Maggie's Centres as our charity and are looking forward to completing their legendary London Night Hike on Friday 21st September.

Eleven of us are hiking: CEO Frank, Site Managers Elvis and Almir and their wives Mihaela and Sandra, Sales Director Dave, Cultural Director Niki and her partner Steve, Financial Controller Andy and his wife Ieva, Contracts Director Nimesh. We are aiming to raise £3135.00 for Maggie's and are at an amazing 73% of our total, with three weeks to go.

Why Maggie's?

Maggie’s Centres are for anyone affected by cancer. They are places where people are welcome at any stage in their journey – from just being diagnosed, or undergoing treatment, to post-treatment, recurrence, end of life or in bereavement. 



Maggie's is about empowering people to live with, through and beyond cancer by bringing together professional help, communities of support and building design to create exceptional centres for cancer care.

They welcome family and friends, too, knowing that those who love and look after someone with cancer can feel just as frightened, vulnerable and uncertain- and all their support is free of charge.



How you can help

You can support our efforts and Maggie's work over at our JustGiving page. Thank you so much for any amount you can give, and for your kindness to us and the people Maggie's work so hard to help.

Hi-de-Hikers!

Bastows have a fine tradition of supporting various charities through others doing great things- and so now we have decided to get active and be the fundraisers! We have chosen Maggie's Centres as our charity and are looking forward to completing their legendary 20 mile London Night Hike on Friday 21st September.

Our eleven intrepid hikers are our CEO Frank, Contracts Director Nimesh and his wife Marisa, Financial Director Andy and his wife Ieva, Site Managers Elvis and Almir and their wives Mihaela and Sandra and Cultural Director Niki and her partner Steve. We start at 7.30pm from Leadenhall Market, and walk 10 miles to Maggie's West London centre before heading back to Leadenhall to complete our 20 mile route.

Why Maggie's?

Maggie’s Centres are for anyone affected by cancer. They are places where people are welcome at any stage in their journey – from just being diagnosed, or undergoing treatment, to post-treatment, recurrence, end of life or in bereavement. 

Maggie's is about empowering people to live with, through and beyond cancer by bringing together professional help, communities of support and building design to create exceptional centres for cancer care.

They welcome family and friends, too, knowing that those who love and look after someone with cancer can feel just as frightened, vulnerable and uncertain- and all their support is free of charge.

Care for those going through a cancer diagnosis and treatment as well as looking out for their families is an issue close to our hearts, and we are proud to be able to support Maggie's and get fit too!

You can support us via our Just Giving page, and if you're a UK taxpayer you'll know that Maggie's will receive the benefit of Gift Aid, making your donation worth even more.

We are excited, nervous, proud and working very hard to break in our shoes in time for the Hike... please support us if you can. We know times are tough, but for some, times are tougher still.

Thank you! 

Congratulations!

Bastows are delighted to share the news that Ivor Gomm, a Partner at Cluttons LLP, has been recognised with Fellowship status of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.

The Fellowship reflects Ivor’s knowledge and expertise, and his commitment to the construction industry.  

Bastows are proud to have worked with Ivor and Cluttons over many years and congratulate him on this well-deserved award.

Learn about Cluttons’ work here: http://www.cluttons.com

Read more about the RICS here: http://www.rics.org/uk

Games on!

The wait is over.

The Olympics- and after that the Paralympics- are with us, and in just over 5 hours time we will witness what is promised to be one of the opening ceremonies that will go down in history for its warmth, spectacle, humour, emotion and inclusivity.

We've been getting excited as we see London, a city we love with all our hearts, gearing up to host the world's greatest sporting event. 

It's been seven years since we won the bid to host the Games, and in that time London has worked its socks off to build, to beautify, and to welcome the World for this amazing event.

Every Londoner has played their part, but we'd like to thank the volunteer 'Gamesmakers' to whom we owe a huge debt of gratitude. Without them and our emergency services, the Games would not have been possible.

Parts of East London have seen a regeneration that was both long overdue and carefully planned so as to leave no 'white elephants'- every Olympic building and structure will pass into full use, from the stadium to the athlete's village. 

Bastows have done their bit too, working hard to beautify our city and make visitors welcome. But this is not about us- this is about the city and its people.

London, we are so impossibly proud of you, and we know you will enchant, delight, amuse and bemuse Olympics and Paralympics visitors. They are our honoured guests, and we owe it to them- and ourselves- to show them the spirit of London and the hospitality and care we'd like to experience on our own travels.

The Olympics values are respect, excellence and friendship.

The Paralympic Values are courage, determination, inspiration and equality.

Let's live by those during the Games- who knows, they may become a habit we find we like. 

Enjoy the opening ceremony- we are confident that it's going to astonish and amaze, and make us prouder than we've felt in many years.

Why tooling around on Facebook matters

There are plenty of companies out there who don't use social media; they consider it 'scary', 'complicated', 'a waste of time and energy'.

Let us explain why we do it.

We have strong values- to be Brave, Harmonious and True. We work every day to embody those values and be the best we can be. That's not just being 'nice', but going beyond what's expected to deliver something exceptional. It's not hard work when you believe that you get what you give- it's an investment in our relationships with each other, our clients, suppliers and the residents of the beautiful buildings we work on. Why do we need a relationship? Because it makes things run smoothly when you've built understanding. Simple, non?

So where does social media come in? Why does 'tooling around on Facebook' matter?

How can we demonstrate what we do, how we do it and who we are to the widest audience we can? Our sites are our billboard- if you want to see what we do, drop by (just be prepared to be inducted so we know you're safe.) Who we are- that's easily illustrated right over on our Family page. Plus, you know, you can give us a call and ask us anything. (Well, maybe not anything, but we know a lot about our business, plus Andy says he's good on sport and there's not much Steve doesn't know about Tottenham Hotspur.)

How we do it has always been the sticky wicket- you'd have to spend some time with us to really get that one. So we set up on Facebook, Twitter and this blog to share our unique approach and culture with you all. Have you read the website and think "There's no way they really work like that"? Well, we say the curous can follow us on Twitter and track back and see the evidence for themselves. Go on, then. We'll wait while you do.

See?

We really DO work like that. We weren't kidding.

Social media is our way of sharing our news, views, and just connecting with the wider world. It's not scary, complicated OR a waste of time. It means residents can check us out before we begin work on their home. It means clients can see the kind of company we are before they consider using us. It means our people can connect and share info. 

As much as there are businesses eyeing the internet warily, there are companies out there doing amazing things with social media too. We don't pretend to be trailblazers, but we're proud that we use it and that we use it honestly. It's just another channel for doing what we already did- communicating in an open and positive way. Each medium is different and has an identified aim- Twitter, with its 140-character limit, is the context of how we converse and connect. Facebook is brilliant for photos and sharing videos, and a little more content. The real meat is here in the blog (which we simply don't update regularly enough, we know- but we will, so watch this space.)This is where we'll be sharing the stories, and welcoming you into our Family a little more.


So we're ready to start sharing a little more about how we do what we do. Drag up a chair and join the conversation.

Missing photos!

Someone stole our photos- we're working on getting them back. Sorry guys and girls... Please bear with us while we find a fix.

Cleaning wooden floors: some advice (eco-friendly too!)

We were sent the below advice from our Contracts Director Nimesh, who's found a creative and environmentally friendly way to clean wooden floors!


Nimesh says:

Before you work on making the floor sparkle, they should be cleaned with vinegar and water. A small amount of vinegar in a bucket of warm water will do wonders for your wood floor. Make sure your floor is sealed and you wring out excess water before mopping the floors, as too much water could damage your wood. That all being said, once they are clean, you can now work on making them shine.

If you have natural unsealed wood floors , you can use linseed oil with a rag, allow it to soak in for a little while, and then mop it up with a little more oil.

For sealed floors, you can use 1 part white vinegar to 1 part vegetable oil to give it a great shine. Just combine the two, grab a rag, and rub it in like you are polishing a car. The shine will blow you away.