We are pleased to announce that Orbis Protect is sponsoring a new ‘Rising Star’ Award as part of this year’s Empty Homes Awards. This award is intended to recognise and reward emerging empty homes practitioners who have made significant contributions over a short period of time.
Louis Fordham, Orbis Protect - Business Development Director for the Social Housing Sector, said:
“We are very proud to be sponsoring the Rising Stars Award in this sector. Over my 25 years working with Orbis, who specialise in the protection and management of empty properties, I have worked in many different roles, which for several years included National Training Manager. In this position I had the great opportunity to see many young individuals grow, thrive and contribute back to the protection of empty homes. We are excited to hear all the great contributions.”
We are looking to recognise newcomers who display the same qualities that we seek when giving the 'Empty Homes Practitioner of the Year' Award. The profile is described in our news story announcing the awards and we will automatically treat ‘Rising Star’ submissions as eligible for the 'Practitioner of the Year' Award in case a newcomer is so brilliant that they outshine the older hands.
Most of the practicalities are the same as for the other awards. In addition, as with the 'EHP of the Year' Award, it means working for an authority that holds Full Membership of the Empty Homes Network (whether Corporate or Collective); but unlike the 'EHP of the Year' Award we are restricting eligibility to local authority employees (or employees of companies to which a local authority has outsourced its empty homes work) because we think roles needs to be broadly comparable across submissions.