The Branch - September 2017

Autumn 2017

Manchester Student Homes’ Good Neighbours Team has worked in partnership with our accredited landlords and agents to create our first edition of The Branch, for the new academic year.

Mindfulness: Use it in everyday life Written by Josh, Luxome, MSH Accredited Agent.

Firstly, in the past few weeks Manchester has welcomed over 80,000 students to the city. During Welcome Week we ran a fantastic programme of social responsibility and community activities in partnership with Manchester City Council, Greater Manchester Police, MSH Accredited Landlords, The University of Manchester and Manchester Metropolitan University departments, to help students settle in, become good neighbours and get to know their new home. We have put together a motion photo gallery, please watch here.

Whether

you’re working a 9-5 graduate job or studying towards a degree, mindfulness is a great way to lower stress levels, improve your focus, decrease your emotional reactivity and improve relationships with others and with yourself.

Mindfulness allows you to clarify in yourself that you can handle whatever is going on around you in your life, the good or the bad.

As much as mindfulness can seem to be an easy thing to incorporate into everyday life, it isn’t always as straightforward as it can appear. One of the hardest hurdles is actually remembering to actively incorporate mindfulness into a daily routine.

The busyness of daily life can make it easy for us to forget to practice mindfulness, when in reality this is the perfect time to use it! Luxome’s top 5 tips for complete mindfulness: 1.

Create reminders for yourself

The Importance of Welcome Packs

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Make mindfulness an everyday practice

Written by Sean, Floorspace, MSH Accredited Agent.

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Keep the noise down and avoid distractions

A welcome pack with information tailored specifically to the

4.

Be grateful and show gratitude

house ensures a tenancy begins with confidence. As landlords, this ensures your property is being used correctly and safely. The perfect welcome pack should include instructions for all appliances in the house with annotated photos, location of meters/fuse box and emergency contact numbers. Combine this with general policies, tips to reduce condensation and pests along with improved energy efficiency tips and being responsible tenants. Keeping this information with your welcome pack means it has a higher chance of being taken in. The best way to make sure that you are including all the relevant information is to firstly ask your current tenants what they would want included in their pack.

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Make a point to plan out your day

Manchester Student Homes (MSH) is a free, university-run housing service for students. MSH runs a landlord accreditation scheme and offers support to students in relation to property searches, providing housing advice and contract checking. MSH also works with students, long term residents and partner agencies to respond to issues in off campus areas.

Words of Advice for my Younger Self Written by Karen Murphy, MSH Accredited Landlord.

“Life goes very quickly and the older you get the quicker it goes.” That was one of my Dad’s favourite sayings which I heard as a little girl. It didn’t mean a great deal when I was a young child or even a young adult but as the years have rolled by I realise how true that is!

Make sure you take time to “smell the roses” or put more simply, “time to enjoy every minute”. We live such busy lives we quite often spend all our time rushing from one thing to another without stopping to take a breath and simply enjoy the moment.

Be brave and embrace every new experience. Take the opportunities offered to you along the way as they may not come around again and the only regrets in life are the things you didn’t do.

Be positive, life is a roller coaster so draw on your strength so you can more easily adapt to help get you through the bad times which you will experience along the way. Always keep in mind that the good things are just around the corner, so hang on in there!

Value your family and friends as they are the ones you need by your side as you travel along life’s pathway.

Keep fit and healthy!

Always believe in yourself – you are special and you are worthy.”

Eco-friendly students Written by Josh, Luxome, MSH Accredited Agent.

We believe that the environment is a very important part of life. Therefore, we are trying to encourage our tenants to each become an eco-friendly student, and to play their part in reducing the effects of climate change! If we all play a small part, we can make a big difference!

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Be sensible with your heating Reuse, Reduce and Recycle Switch appliances off at the mains Don’t over-fill your kettle Use less water Avoid wasting food Dry your clothes the old-fashioned way Walk, bike, and use public transport as much as possible

Final Thought...

We would like to welcome

Alice, our new University of

Manchester Community Cohesion Intern, who joined the MSH team during the summer holidays in August.

We are delighted to welcome Alice to our MSH team in the role of University of Manchester Community Cohesion Graduate Intern. Alice has a wealth of experience working in community based roles and is a great addition to our team.

Poppy Humphrey MSH Off Campus Student Affairs Officer