"Homelessness can happen to anyone"

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Category: Your Reports

Created on Saturday, 25 August 2018 12:27

Written by Northern Living

Homelessness can happen to anyone.

Reader submission by Susan R & Tony C

It's a common phrase which we've all heard from time to time and generally simply pass over. But in fact it's a true statement and the consequences can be devastating. Having had two posts with tied accommodation, both of which went dreadfully wrong for different reasons we found ourselves with no home and very few possessions. We approached the local council and entered a system which has been denuded of funding by central government to such an extent that the council are forced to protect resources to the extent that they actively declare some of the most needy people in society to be Intentionally Homeless. A phrase which is in it's simplest form an absolute nonsense. Who in their right mind would make themselves homeless intentionally? After six months in a Homeless Hostel which was little better than a prison camp the dreaded letter arrived with instructions to appeal or basically find somewhere else to live. Realistically if we had anywhere else to live we wouldn't have been there in the first place. Although our appeal was eventually upheld and we were offered a flat which exceeded our expectations many who are less able than ourselves would have simply be forced to live on the streets. In our previous post we were working 160 hours per week between us with half of this unpaid. We are certainly not scroungers, a phrase used by over paid privileged politicians. 

This is the point at which we received the help we needed from the most unexpected source. We were referred to The Salvation Army, an organisation we had no experience of and only a vague idea of the services they have to offer. After only 11 days under their care they had referred us to a hostel which was the Ritz compared with the council version and through their contacts at the council expressed the offer of the flat which is now our home. We are eternally grateful to the staff at The Salvation Army and will be dedicating our free time to repay them in any way we can. Without their help we were realistically looking at spending the autumn and winter in a tent in scrub-land near a river which floods almost every year. It is no exaggeration to say that they probably saved our lives.

We hope that this situation never occurs in the lives of anybody we know. But if by whatever misfortune it should, our advice is to make contact with The Salvation Army or one of the other numerous homeless charities as soon as humanly possible. Unfortunately you don't get the help you need without asking and far too many people simply fall through the system.

York Salvation Army homelessness hub - 63 Lawrence Street, York YO10 3BU.

Should businesses use Google+?

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Category: Metacraft

Created on Tuesday, 16 September 2014 10:30

Written by Northern Living

Should businesses use Google+? Here are 10 good reasons we think they should.

1- Google+ isn’t a space for temporary, limited, 140 characters updates like Twitter. And its not for meeting up with people like Facebook. What makes it different is that Google Plus is promoted by the biggest technology platform on the planet. This should be taken advantage of, because what happens on G+, will be prioritized by Google.

2- Google+ in only a year and a half it grew exponentially and established itself as the second biggest social network in the world. You have the chance to be part of this new social network. Remember Twitter’s story? At the beginning no one was sure about how to use it or why to use it. But, the brands that got there first got the best part of the deal.

3- Everything you post on G+ is immediately indexed by Google. Thus, influencing search engine results positively. We know this is huge for companies and professionals, because the websites that appear on the first page of Google, and especially in the first few positions, get 54.8% of all clicks from users, according to a study by Optify.

4. Entering the world of Google Plus means having a great deal of resources in one single place: Hangouts, Communities, Youtube, Google, Gmail, Google Maps etc. Each of these was created to benefit and optimize your marketing strategy and take your brand even further.

5. Google is offering you an innovative way to relate to the world in general. Through the personalization of Google’s search engine, they give you the opportunity to find specific information related and adjusted to your interests, preferences, and to those of your social environment.

6- The +1 button allows people to establish what’s trendy, beyond those robotic algorithms that rank a website. According to Hubspot after analysing more than 5 thousand websites it was revealed that the sites that use the “+1” button get 3.5 x more visits on Google+.

7- Because you can add authorship to your content. In a few words and in order to make it simpler, this puts your profile picture next to your content in Google search results. It also allows you to build up your status and foster trust among users, thus affecting the amount of clicks you get, the traffic, and the visit volume.

8- Your brand can participate in different communities, (which can’t be done on other social networks).This means you don’t have to sit around waiting for users to wind up on your page, instead, your brand can go around the world actively connecting with people. On G+ it’s easy to connect with prospective customers by finding them in groups that share the same interests as your brand. This is just one example and the strategy can actually go much much beyond that.

9- You have a great resource for connecting with your customers and your audience in a totally new and unique way.

10 – It's free!!!!!

Responsive Content Management System upgrade

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Category: Metacraft

Created on Tuesday, 02 September 2014 16:17

Written by Northern Living

Content Management Systems offer considerable advantages for businesses who need to be able to add to and edit content on their website without the need for any programing knowledge. If a CMS can be coupled with a responsive design so that the site is accessible on almost every possible platform, the business gains double benefits. This site update also includes features such as social share, so site vititors are able to share content at the click of a button. In a way this makes them your sales people....

"Our website upgrade is complete, we hope you find it much easier to use. Gone are most of the older pictures, here however is a rather interesting shot of Andy we found in a virtual dusty corner of the server! All the old features are still available in the new site, plus a more logical menu system and the ability to use the site on the go on any mobile with ease and without having to download an App. The only exception is the Parkray spares. Supplies of Parkray parts have become slightly hit and miss over recent months. You can always give us a call on 01757 212992 or out of hours feel free to fill in your details here - http://www.housewarmingselby.co.uk//index.php/inforequest and we'll be please to get back to you.