Information for tenants – A-Z

Community Base Team and contacts 

Director: Olivia Canham 

  • Email: director@communitybase.org    
  • Phone: 01273 234047, ext 1214 
  • Office days: Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday 
  • Contact for: office space, finance, lease information, partnerships, emergencies, and safety 

Deputy Director: Annette Moss 

Building manager: Matt Mills 

  • Office hours: 3 days a week, variable days 
  • Contact for: building maintenance, recycling, office refits and maintenance, office equipment, moving and disposing of materials and equipment (email reception for building manager’s contact details).

Comms manager

  • Email: comms@communitybase.org  
  • Office hours: part-time, variable days 
  • Contact for: events, training, marketing, social media, promotion 

Administrator

  • Email: posterguide@communitybase.org  
  • Phone: 01273 234852 
  • Office hours: Monday and Thursday 
  • Contact for: Posterguide, administrative queries 

Receptionist

  • Email: reception@communitybase.org  
  • Phone: 01273 234000, ext 1200 
  • Office hours: Monday-Friday
  • Contact for: main point of contact for some administrative queries including post, room bookings, building access, and website postings. If you’re not sure who to contact, reception will forward your message to the best person. 

Emergency out of hours: 

AP Security – 0845 0702 407 

Alternative emergency contacts: 

Director – 07947 837432 

Building Manager – 07989 049645 

Lift emergency contact: 

Ascent – 01273 297989 

 

Information A-Z

 

Accessing the building 

Entry via reception:

Reception is open Mondays 10:00-16:30, Tuesdays-Fridays 08:30-16:30.

Reception is closed on bank holidays and is also closed for about 2 weeks around the Christmas and new year bank holidays. 

The building is accessible to tenants with access fobs via the South Wing entrance from 6am – 10pm, 7 days a week, every day of the year. 

If the entrance appears to be locked within these hours, contact reception or our security team 0845 0702 407. 

If entering via the SW, or entering NW from SW, never let someone without a fob that you don’t know enter behind you. If they pressure you, tell them you don’t have authorisation to let them in and remind them that they can visit reception or call a colleague. 

Entry via South Wing with fobs: 

Most tenant staff members and some volunteers will have a fob – ask your administrator if you think you need one. Visitors and service users should never be lent or given fobs.

Community Base has fob readers on SW entrance, LGF, 2F, 4F, and car park.  

If you need to access the NW from the SW, you should use your fob to enter via SW entrance, then use either the LGF, 2F, or 4F fob readers to enter NW.

Each fob is programmed for a particular person; the fob can then be programmed remotely: we can change or remove access at any time. 

To use:

  • Users hold their fob up against the readers and this will unlock / open the door for them.  
  • Fobs are small, so we ask users to always keep them on a keyring or lanyard.  
  • If you lose or break your fob: email reception. 
  • When you leave Community Base, please return your fob to reception. 
  • Lost, broken, or unreturned fobs incur a £5 fee; we can invoice, or user can pay cash. 

Fobs for new staff members are charged at £5 each, returned fobs from leaving staff members act as credit – so for most organisations this usually balances out. 

See car park section for information on car park access.

Reception manages the fob system.

Visitors:

  • During reception opening hours, visitors are welcome to come to reception  
  • We have 4 waiting chairs, and we have capacity for another 3-4 people standing in reception. If reception is crowded we ask people to wait outside. 
  • If your visitors do not understand English, or have other barriers to reaching their appointments, it can be useful to let reception know in advance, or send the visitor a text message that they can show the receptionist. 
  • Tell your visitors specifically where to meet you. If they are meeting you at the South Wing: 
    • Give them clear instructions for how to let you know they’ve arrived. This is especially important outside of reception opening hours.  
    • They can use the intercom to ring the conference room, an office extension number (some offices have this displayed in the window), 1222 for SW2, or 1333 for SW3. 
    • Some event organisers / 1-1 support workers wait by the door. 
  • Visitors with appointments 
    • Reception will ask the visitor what organisation they are seeing, the appointment time, their name, and the name of the person they are meeting  
    • We will then call up to the office or meeting room to confirm with you  
    • We will send up visitors when you have confirmed or ask them to wait for you
    • If you have any requirements for particular visitors, or want us to be aware of anything in advance, please let reception know
    • If you are not contactable by your main office ext and are expecting a visitor, please tell reception how to contact you or when to expect you to collect your visitor 
  • Participants at events 
    • When you are hosting events or training sessions in a booked Community Base meeting room, reception will be able to see where you have booked and will send the participants up to the room at the booking time 
    • If you have any requirements (such as participants should wait by South Wing, or reception should call up to the room to check they are ready first), or if you have more than 6 participants arriving at the same time, please talk to reception 
    • If you are running an event in your own offices, please let reception know whether to call up or send people straight to the event 
    • If you have a regular event, speak to reception about how many participants you expect and how and when to send them up 
  • Service users without appointments, and drop-in potential service users 
    • Speak to reception about how you prefer to deal with these situations 
    • Typically, reception will call to your office to ask if anyone is available, and if not, will take the drop-in’s details or give them your organisation’s public contact details

 

Accessibility 

The reception entrance has two automatic doors. Push buttons are located on left hand side of doors outside and inside reception, this will open both doors during reception opening hours. 

SW entrance also has an automatic door. This can be opened by using your fob, someone from inside buzzing open the door, or from the inside by pressing the push button. 

Lifts:

NW lifts: GF, 1F, 2F, 3F, & 4F 

SW lifts: LGF, GF, 1F, 2F, 3F, 4F, 5F 

  • Lifts are wheelchair accessible, but not all mobility scooters will be able to manoeuvre inside 
    • The SW lift has a door opening width of 76cm; internal size is 139cm deep by 99cm wide (NB door opening width less than internal width, so needs to be taken into consideration) 
  • We have our lifts serviced periodically 
  • Lifts at each end of the building are serviced one at a time, so only one set of lifts should be out of order at any one time 
    • When the South Wing lifts are out of order, the SW 1F, 3F and the conference room are only accessible via stairs 
    • When the North Wing lifts are out of order, the NW 1F and 3F, are only accessible via stairs 
  • We try to book services in advance and send notifications around the building a few days in advance, so staff with access needs, or groups with service users with access needs can plan ahead around this 
  • It is extremely rare for there to be a problem where the lift will stop working while passengers are inside, in almost every case, if there is a fault the lift will either not open its doors when called, not close the doors once opened, or not leave the floor it’s on 
  • In the event of any problems or concerns about a lift:
    • If you are in the lift and the doors do not open, press the emergency call button and this will automatically call the lift service – you will be put through to a switchboard
    • If you notice any issues, visit or call reception EXT 1200 / 01273 234000
  • Please note if the lift is called and then a floor button is not pressed, after a few minutes the lift will close the doors and switch the lights off – this can make people feel that they are trapped but the lift will work and doors will open

If you have disabled staff, service users or event attendees, please review the fire safety evacuation information, ask the building manager or deputy director in advance if you want more information. 

Car park accessibility

We do not recommend the use of the car park for disabled visitors, because the spaces are not wide, and the route from the car park to the SW lift is not very accessible. Always check with reception or building manager before booking in a disabled visitor into the car park. See car park section for more information on the car park. If you have accessibility needs and are considering using the car park, ask the building manager or deputy director to show you around. 

Accessible bathrooms can be found: 

  • Reception GF 
  • NW 2F 
  • SW LGF
  • SW 5F 

 

Bathrooms

Our bathrooms can be found: 

NW GF 

  • Accessible bathroom – with baby changing facilities 

NW F1  

  • “Men” – cubicles and urinals  

NW F2   

  • Accessible bathroom  
  • “Women” – cubicles  

NW F3 

  • All gender – cubicles and urinals  
  • All gender – cubicles only   

SW LGF  

  • Accessible bathroom  
  • “Women” – cubicles  
  • Shower  

SW F1 

  • “Men” – cubicles and urinals  
  • “Women” – cubicles  

SW F4 

  • “Men” – cubicles and urinals  

SW F5 

  • Accessible bathroom – with baby changing facilities 
  • “Women” – cubicles 

Tell reception if you notice any issues in a bathroom (blocked toilet, no soap etc.) 

 

Car park

The car park entrance is located on the north side of the building on North Road, close to the lights. 

The roller shutter is opened with a fob. Car park access is not default on tenant fobs. Regular users of the car park can request have car park access added to their fobs. Contact reception. 

A small number of groups at Community Base rent permanent spaces in the car park.  

Car park spaces 10 and 7 are bookable by tenants on the room booking system Skedda, see here for more information about room bookings. Bookers who do not already have car park access on their fobs should email reception at least 1 working day in advance to have car park access temporarily added. 

Cyclists do not need car park access, there is a bike room for tenants on the in the South Wing LGF.  

We do not recommend using the car park for unloading furniture or equipment, because of causing blockages in the small space, and because access to lifts is not easy from the car park. We recommend that people park in the loading bay outside of the Brighthelm on North Road and take their stuff up through reception or South Wing lifts, they can borrow a trolley from reception.

We also do not recommend booking the car park for disabled staff or service users because the bays are narrow and access to main building is via non-accessible doors. If you have accessibility needs and are considering using the car park, ask the building manager or deputy director to show you around. 

We do not allow car park access for external groups who book rooms at Community Base. 

 

Christmas Craft Fair

Once a year we hold a public event with stalls run by local crafters.

Stalls range from bakes to artwork, jewellery to festive treats and more. Each stallholder pays a fee for their stall, and selects one tenant organisation based at Community Base to donate a percentage of the proceeds. Tenant organisations are also welcome to have stalls.

Look out for invitations to participate from the events and marketing manager in the autumn!

 

Cleaning 

Green Mop clean Community Base communal areas, meeting rooms, stairwells, and bathrooms. They are local, environmentally conscious, and are a real living wage employer. 

Offices are cleaned by tenants, or tenants can make arrangements with a cleaning company. If you would like to discuss office cleaning with Green Mop, they can be contacted at info@greenmop.co.uk 

There is a hoover for tenants to borrow in the cupboard in the reception accessible bathroom – please return promptly after use. Building manager and deputy director usually replace hoover bag, spare bags kept in reception bathroom cupboard. 

We do not provide cleaning products for tenant offices.

Tenants are expected to do their own washing up in communal kitchens. Community Base provide sponges and ecover washing up liquid for communal kitchens. Tenants should bring empty washing up liquid bottles and worn sponges to reception to be swapped for fresh ones.

 

Coffee room 

Located on the NW 1F, the coffee room has sofas and a kitchenette for tenants to use for breaks, lunchtimes, socialising, and relaxing.  

Please don’t use this space for work meetings, zoom calls, or work calls. 

There is a photocopier for communal use – see below for information. 

 

Community Base website 

We run four information services and an event calendar on our website: 

You can register to post on these pages here: https://communitybase.org/wordpress/wp-login.php?action=register  

 

Cycling to work 

There is a bike room for tenants on the in the South Wing LGF:

  • You can find it by entering through the SW entrance and going directly down the stairs 
  • We recommend using a bike lock  
  • There is a bike pump and a tool kit 
  • There are a limited number of lockers available – ask reception 

If you have an issue with your bike, ask our building manager for assistance or recommendation on where to get it fixed.

 

Fire safety

Evacuation procedure 

Community Base has a simple fire evacuation procedure. When the fire alarm sounds everyone in the building should: 

  • Immediately evacuate the building by the nearest fire exit, without using a lift 
  • Wait by fire assembly point, on the top of Church Street (turn left out of Community Base, walk past Brighthelm Gardens, first left)
  • No one should return to the building until authorised to do so by a representative of the Fire Service or Community Base
  • Fire wardens: should bring their sign with their organisation’s name and lead their staff out of the building. 

Groups should ensure that all their employees, volunteers and visitors are aware of this fire evacuation procedure. Groups are responsible for ensuring that all people with limited mobility using Community Base because of the group’s activities can leave the building safely if the fire alarm is sounded.

Please contact the Deputy Director for information on fire warden training, and on safe spaces for disabled people in event of fire.

We will email groups in advance of any testing. If the alarm sounds for more than a few seconds the fire evacuation procedure should be followed as usual.

The risk of fire in a building like Community Base is a serious one and we ask everyone to cooperate in reducing potential fire hazards:  

  • Always take particular care with electrical equipment, never overloading sockets and reporting any concern about wiring or equipment to reception immediately  
  • Never wedge fire doors open (fire doors held open by magnets should not normally be closed but will shut automatically when the fire alarm is activated)  
  • Never put cardboard, rubbish or furniture in corridors or other communal areas  
  • Always take care with wall-mounted heaters, ensuring that nothing – furniture, clothes, piles of boxes and so on – comes within six inches of a heater  
  • Never use heating other than our wall-mounted smart heaters without the consent of our building manager  
  • Never keep piles of cardboard or other potentially inflammable material in your office unnecessarily – recycle it!

 

First Aid

There is a defibrillator in reception under reception desk.

First aid boxes can be found in reception and the conference room.

Trained first aiders are indicated on the Internal Contacts List – please update us on who your first aiders are.

In the case of a medical emergency, call 999 immediately and inform reception when you can.

We are currently getting quotes for subsidised first aid training for Community Base tenants – we will advertise this to tenants via mailing list.

 

Fundraising

How Community Base is funded:

Community Base is an independent charity. Community Base uses income from rent, service charges and advertising on its north wall to repay a mortgage on the building we own and meet our running costs. Brighton and Hove City Council shows its support for Community Base by giving us discretionary rate relief.

FundsOnline

  • Community Base is subscribed to FundsOnline, an online database which allows you to search over 8,000 sources of funding 
  • This resource is available to use by our tenants, or (at our discretion) by small local voluntary and community groups 
  • To use the platform, please email reception and we will give you the password 
  • Because the subscription only allows one person to be logged in at a time, please shoot the director a quick email when you’re logged on, so that we can prevent anyone else from logging in and disrupting your session. 

 

Heating and cooling your office 

Keeping warm:

Community Base is heated in most part by smart heaters, which are usually switched on early winter and off again mid-spring. When it starts to get too cold in your office in the winter, please email reception to have your heating turned on.

Using your heating:

  • Find your thermostat on the office wall.
  • Press the up arrow once to illuminate one red LED.
  • This is set to bring the temperature to 20°c for 4 hours.
  • After this cycle, when only the blue LED is illuminated, you can reset the thermostat by pressing the up arrow once again.
  • On very cold days you can press the up arrow a second time to illuminate two red LEDs. This will boost the temperature to 23°c for 45 minutes.

Safety and other information:

  • Please ensure that the immediate space around the radiators is clear of office equipment, papers, or clothes .
  • Please ask at reception or speak to building manager if you are having trouble keeping your office warm.
  • Our meeting rooms are set up a bit differently – their 20°c setting stays on for 1 hour, they can also be boosted to 23°c  for 45 minutes. The heaters detect if a window is opened.  

Keeping cool:

  • In the summer we recommend using fans rather than air conditioning.
  • Fans cool your body by accelerating the evaporation of perspiration but they do not cool the air.
  • Fans should be switched off when you leave a room to conserve electricity.

 

Hiring rooms 

Tenants can hire Community Base meeting rooms at a subsidised rate. Tenants can book the Conference Room, SW2, SW3, Car Park Spaces 7 and 10, and the Wellbeing Room:

  • Bookings are made on the online booking system, Skedda. Each tenant organisation is allowed one booking account. 
  • Rooms cannot be used without a booking. 
  • Find out about prices, availability, and read the room hire contract on our room bookings page and FAQ page, email reception with any questions. 

The room hire contract outlines the expectations we have of room bookers, but please also remember to bear these courtesy rules in mind: 

  • You must include set-up and clear-up time in your booking 
  • Unless the group in the room before you runs over into your time, please don’t knock, stand directly outside the door, or ask if you can come in and set up 
  • The rooms at Community Base are regularly used for mental health and other support groups, so it’s important that participants feel able to share without being interrupted or overheard 

The Wellbeing Room: 

  • This is a small room with two relaxed chairs, a coffee table, and a window.  
  • It is free for tenants to book for meditation, quiet-time, wellbeing practices, and prayer.  
  • It should not be used for 1-1 meetings, zoom meetings, phone calls, or other work purposes, unless agreed to with the director in advance.  
  • To find the room: take the door adjacent to the Community Base Team office in the 1st floor coffee room, the Wellbeing Room is the first door on the right  
  • Please do not enter or knock on the door unless you have booked it 
  • Please slide the door to ‘Engaged’ when you enter, and ‘Vacant’ when you leave 
  • If you have booked the space, but the door sign says ‘Engaged’ please knock before entering

 

IT and internet 

Groups at Community Base each have a wifi network they can connect to. The name is the organisation name. Ask your administrator, or email our Director for information and password. 

If you have any issues finding your network, connecting to your network, or the connection isn’t sufficient to do your work, please email reception with details. We will ask the building manager and our networks engineer to investigate. 

In the meantime, you are welcome to use the Community Base wifi. Please ask reception for the password. 

Visitors and room bookers at Community Base are welcome to use our Community Base wifi. Please ask reception for the password. 

 

Keys 

  • Incoming organisations can pick up office keys from reception 
  • Community Base will retain a spare for each office 
  • You are welcome to cut additional keys for your staff 
  • Come to reception if you need to borrow a spare office key for the day 
  • Borrowed keys should be returned on the same day 
  • If you would like to install a code operated lock, please speak to the building manager; if you change the code on any lock, inform reception 
  • All keys must be returned to reception when your group’s lease ends at Community Base 

 

Mailing list 

The Community Base mailing list is used to circulate urgent building updates, such as unusual reception closure, lift out of order notices, and other important information for groups at Community Base. We also use it to advertise wellbeing events and socials!

Tenants are welcome to use the mailing list to send messages around the building.  

We have at least one person from each tenant organisation on the list, so that every organisation is kept up to date with important information. 

It’s helpful to have multiple people from your organisation on the list, so that if members of staff are away from work, important messages are still received by your staff. 

To send an email to the Community Base mailing list, send an email to this address: communitybase@gn.apc.org  

  • Attachments and images will not send, so ensure to include all the information in text and to remove any icons or pictures from your signature. 
  • Anyone who is subscribed to the list can send a message to the mailing list. 
  • The receptionist is responsible for managing the mailing list. 

 

Moving in 

Welcome to Community Base! 

Email the director and reception with your move in date, and let us know if you’ll be unloading furniture and equipment on the day. 

Email reception with a list of your staff and volunteers, indicating the following: 

  • Who needs access fobs 
  • Who should be on the Internal Contacts List 
  • Who should be main contact(s) 
  • First aiders 
  • Who should be on the mailing list 

The director should email you with information about phones, internet, photocopying and franking accounts, and other relevant information. 

On move-in day:

  • For unloading furniture etc., we recommend parking in the loading bay outside of the Brighthelm on North Road and taking your stuff up through reception or South Wing lifts. You can borrow a trolley from reception. 
  • Liaise with the building manager ahead of time if you need assistance moving furniture or setting up your office. 
  • See section on ‘Maintenance and office refits’ for information about sourcing furniture and equipment. If there’s something you need that you don’t have, ask! 
  • Collect keys and access fobs from reception 
  • We will give your staff Welcome Letters, which contain basic information about the building and how to contact us. It also contains our fire safety procedure. 

 

Moving out 

You should vacate your office space and hand in your office keys and access fobs by the end of your licence date as given in your notice. 

Liaise with the building manager ahead of time if you need any assistance moving out, and let him know if there is any office furniture or equipment you want to leave behind. 

Please speak to reception about post after you have left the building. You should inform all correspondents of your new address, but we are happy to forward any post to your new address as a courtesy for a period of time at our discretion. 

If you want to use Community Base as your postal address going forward, please contact reception. 

 

Networking 

We believe that as a community, we are stronger together. The more we know about each-other’s work and the better we know each other as people, the more effectively and creatively we can address the needs of the communities we belong to. 

Having an office at Community Base provides a rare opportunity to be working literally alongside a wide and diverse array of other organisations (typically, 35-40 groups), and we want our tenant organisations to experience the full benefit of this, to feel comfortable and supported in connecting with other groups. 

Moving on from the changes and loss of connection from the Covid-19 pandemic, we want to proactively support networking between our member groups by holding events open to all tenants. 

Here are some of our networking events:

  • Our Meet Your Neighbour events are informal networking events with food provided – they are a relaxed way to get to know your fellow Basers and chat about the work you do. 
  • Our House Meetings are drop-in discussion groups – sometimes these are based around our campaigns with Citizens UK (such as Living Wage, mental health, and housing), or around broader questions important to our local community (such as our racial harassment meeting).

We advertise through our mailing list and on posters around the building – look out for our next event! 

If you have any feedback on our events, or would like to suggest an event, please email our Comms Manager Luke at comms@communitybase.org 

 

Newsletter 

Community Base publishes a newsletter once a month.

Tenants and postal address users can find previous issues and subscribe here: https://mailchi.mp/f5b18d1406f4/apr2023-newsletter-17323619?e=  

The newsletter includes news from Community Base, our partners, our members – tenants and postal address users, and some news from other local community groups about events and services that may be relevant to Community Base and service users.

The newsletter is usually sent out around the middle of each month, so if you want something to be included – job vacancies, events, recent successes, news of programmes or services you are starting – please email reception before the second week of the month.

 

Office furniture and equipment 

Tenants are responsible for their own office furniture and equipment, except for phones and network sockets (unless they have their own network installed).  

The building manager is happy to help you fix office furniture, email to ask!

SCIP have office space in the building and can help you with IT issues – see their contact details on the Internal Contacts List.

Office changes and refits: 

  • Email building manager to discuss  
  • The building manager has experience sourcing materials and fitting offices and will be happy to discuss changes you’d like to make to your office. This work will sometimes be chargeable, but it will likely be cheaper than another contractor. If the building manager isn’t qualified for the work you need, he can give you recommendations for affordable alternatives. 
  • The building manager can also help with finding and recycling equipment and furniture.  
  • Community Base is committed to encouraging a circular economy – which in this context means sharing and swapping resources and recycling rather than wasting materials. It also means keeping business local, by buying, hiring, and redistributing within the local area.
  • The ‘Free Table’ in the reception lobby is a good example:  
    • If you have small furniture or office supplies, or other household items that are in good working order but that you no longer need – drop these off on the free table 
    • These items are free to take by anyone, so help yourself! 
    • For larger items, please email the building manager 
  • If you’re not sure how to get started finding materials or getting something done – ask! 

We also have various bits and pieces to borrow – collection buckets, a coin sorter – just ask!

 

Online services 

Community Base runs four online search services, and an online events calendar on our website: 

Posting on the website is free. You can register to post here. 

 

Paper 

Tenants can buy white A4 printer paper from the Community Base paper bank at reception. 

We buy the recycled paper from a sustainable, local source. We buy 10-20 boxes in bulk to arrive in one delivery, so that groups in the building can come to us for paper as and when needed, rather than ordering individual boxes delivered separately, cutting down on transportation fuel and reducing the use of non-recycled or non-sustainably sourced paper used in the building. 

We sell the paper to tenants at cost. 

Prices (charged to quarterly invoices):  

  • 1 ream: £9.59
  • 1 box: £47.94

Paper for the 1st floor photocopier is provided by Community Base, please knock on the Team Office door or ask at reception if the photocopier needs topping up. 

 

Partnerships 

Citizens UK 

Community Base is partnered with Brighton & Hove Citizens, a community organising group comprised of schools, colleges, universities, unions, faith and community organisations. Our collective membership represents over 50,000 people across Brighton & Hove.  

B&H Citizens is a local chapter of a national movement called Citizens UK, which is the largest network of civil society institutions across Europe. 

We have been active in two campaigns: 

  • The living wage campaign, focusing on getting the real living wage for all council workers, and for local carer workers 
  • The housing campaign, focusing on affordability and accountability for renters and community land trust homes

We have started to run regular ‘House Meetings’ which are informal lunchtime discussions for Community Base tenants around the issues that affect us locally. So far, we’ve had House Meetings about housing, the living wage, mental health, and racial harassment. 

Look out for invitations to House Meetings on the community base mailing list, and for posters up around the building. 

Email reception or pop round to Olivia’s office for a chat if you have any questions or would like to get involved! 

Brighton Soup 

Community Base is partnered with Brighton Soup. BrightonSoup run events where small local community projects pitch for seed funding. 

What is a ‘Soup’?

  • It’s a social and interactive occasion with food and music: audience members hear four pitches, ask questions, and then vote on the project they like the most.  
  • At the end of the evening the ballots are counted and the winner is awarded the money raised (from the £5 entry tickets + extra donations) to fund their project – usually around £1,000 
  • BrightonSoup benefits more than just the winning project, however. Projects that apply to pitch are offered pitch training with feedback, and on the night, runners up are often offered donations, given advice on where to get funding, and make new connections with local groups. 
  • We host their events in the Conference Room 4+ times a year 

 

PAT testing 

We employ PAT testers once every 2 years, we will inform you of the next testing date via the mailing list. 

The PAT testers visit every office and usually complete the work over 2-3 days, usually in the mid-late evening. 

Please let us know in advance if: 

  • You have already had your electrical items PAT tested and do not require them to be done in this cycle. 
  • You have GDPR issues regarding contractors entering your offices. 
  • You have meetings during these times so access is restricted. 
  • You have servers running that need to be re-booted. 
  • There is a particular time when you need the PAT testers not to disturb your office, and we will ask them to avoid these times. 

 

Phones 

  • Phones can be installed in your office on request, please email the director 
  • Phone extensions are £30 per quarter but local and national phone calls are free 
  • Contact reception if you have any issues with or questions about your phones 
  • Phone numbers and ext numbers for each tenant organisation are stored on the reception Internal Phone Directory, which is shared between all tenants 
  • The directory includes the names and contact details of key contacts, and indicates fire wardens and first aiders 
  • Please contact reception to receive an up-to-date copy, or to update your details 

 

Post, packages, and franking 

Post 

  • Each tenant organisation has a pigeonhole in reception. 
  • Each weekday, the receptionist sorts the post into the pigeon holes and emails the mailing list to confirm post has been sorted.
  • If a piece of post is put in your pigeonhole that you don’t think is for you, please hand it to reception straight away. 
  • Likewise, if you think you are missing a piece of post, please let us know. 
  • Some organisations have clients who use them as a care-of address, if you start any arrangements like this, please inform reception. 
  • If you are involved in a commercial organisation outside of your work at Community Base, Community Base cannot act as the postal address. 

Postal address

Community Base acts as a postal address to over 40 small community organisations. This service is offered at £25+VAT per year. Post can be held for collection at reception, or forwarded.

Postal address service users are offered tenant rates on room bookings, and the opportunity to submit and subscribe to our monthly newsletter. 

Packages 

Packages and deliveries are taken by reception during reception opening hours. Reception will email your organisation when a package arrives for you and will usually leave it by the pigeon holes for you to collect. 

Packages pile up quickly, especially larger boxes, so we ask that you collect your deliveries promptly. 

If you are expecting a large delivery, please let us know in advance. If it is a very large palette delivery that has to be unpacked outside reception, we will ask a member of your staff to come down.

If you have ordered a courier to collect something, please let reception know to expect them. If the package is small reception can hold onto it and give it to the courier, if the package is large, please give reception the best number to call when the courier arrives.

Franking 

  • The franking machine is located on the first floor landing in the north wing.  
  • Franking labels are provided. Please inform reception if labels are running low. 
  • Most tenant organisations have a franking account, please ask at reception if you need to set one up. 
  • Royal Mail collect franked mail from the 1st floor landing every weekday at around 15:45 
  • Franked mail is only valid on the day it is franked, so if you frank any mail while reception is closed, or after 15:45 on a weekday, you will need to take the mail to the post office yourself. 
  • In the event of a postal strike, franked mail is usually not collected, so reception will endeavour to send a reminder email via the mailing list. 
  • The maximum weight for each postal bag is 11kg. If the bag is getting full, please weigh it and start a new bag if necessary. 
  • If you plan a large mail-out (anything that would fill one bag or more per day):
    • please email reception at least one working day in advance so we can inform the sorting office,
    • this is important because the Royal Mail worker may need to bring a van, park nearer, or take longer than usual to collect and this affects their route planning. 

 

Posterguide

Once a year, Community Base produces, prints, and distributes our Posterguide. 

The Posterguide lists addresses and contact details for local community services organised by category, and includes a map to the services we most commonly signpost people to.  The guide is not meant to be exhaustive, but rather to act as a practical guide and starting point to accessing key local services.  Reception produce and use more informal and more comprehensive lists of services in our everyday signposting work, please ask if you have any signposting questions. 

There is a section on the guide listing groups based at Community Base – please email our administrator Katharine at posterguide@communitybase.org to update or discuss your entry on the Posterguide! 

If you have questions or comments about the Posterguide, please email Katharine. 

We print physical copies, which can be unfolded and put up like a poster, and we also have a digital copy on our website here. 

The Posterguide is distributed across the city to community centres, community services, healthcare services, local businesses and many other locations. 

You can pick up copies in reception – take as many as you need! Ask reception if you need more copies for your service users or to bring to events. 

 

Promoting your projects and events

We want to support our tenants in the work that they do, and part of this is using our public and internal platforms to spread the word. 

If you have a project, event, or group – new or ongoing, that you’d like us to promote, please email our Events and Marketing Manager on eventsandmarketing@communitybase.org, they can get the word out via our social media channels. 

 

Printing facilities 

In the 1st floor coffee room there is a photocopier for tenants to use. 

Ask your administrator, or our director for your organisation’s 4-digit passcode. 

We charge 6p for colour copies and 3p for black and white. Printing costs are added to your quarterly invoices. 

To use the photocopier: 

  • Enter your passcode
  • Select the photocopying options you want

To use the printer: 

  • Enter your passcode
  • Insert a USB into the left-hand side of the display screen
  • The printer will only print PDFs and JPEGs, so you will need to convert other documents to this format before printing. 

Troubleshooting:

  • If the machine runs out of paper, please knock on the Team Office door or ask at reception. 
  • If you notice a low-ink notification, please knock on the Team Office door or tell reception. 
  • Most of the time the photocopier behaves itself, but it’s sometimes challenging to use. If you have any trouble, please feel free to knock on the Community Base Team Office door – during the week there is almost always someone there to help. You can also ask the building manager for assistance.
  • There’s a common problem that can be easily fixed without help, which is where the printer asks you to put paper in the bypass tray, or refuses to print particular documents. This is a fix that often works: 
    • When you have clicked ‘Print’ for the document you’ll see the options pop up 
    • Click on Paper Size and turn ‘Prioritize Original Size’ to ‘Off’ 
    • Then select the size of paper you want to print on, and select ‘Shrink to fit’ 
    • Click ok 
    • This is because converting different types of document to pdf sometimes produces a non-standard paper size, so the printer thinks it shouldn’t print a4 or a3 – it may be possible when converting your documents to pdf to choose a standard paper size. 

 

Questionnaire 

Once a year we ask our tenants to fill out a questionnaire about their experience of leasing space at Community Base, we ask for feedback on our performance and suggestions for improvements. We will circulate the questionnaire by email. 

 

Reception 

The reception team are your first point of contact for most queries, including building maintenance, room booking queries, administrative questions, and anything where you’re not sure who to contact. 

The receptionist will greet visitors with appointments and phone up to your office. The receptionist will also greet event participants and send them to the meeting room. Please speak to reception if you have special requirements for sending visitors around the building, or any safety concerns regarding visitors. Please also let reception know how to greet potential service users. 

Part of the role of the receptionist is to provide signposting to drop-in visitors who are not service users of groups at Community Base.  

If you have new services to offer, please let the receptionist know so that we can add this to our signposting guides. 

We are happy to display posters and print materials advertising your services or events in reception, please bring to reception. 

Reception opening hours are:

  • Mondays: 10.00-16.30
  • Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays: 8.30-16.30

Reception can be contacted on: (01273) 234000 / ext 1200 / reception@communitybase.org 

 

Rubbish and recycling 

In the building:

  • Please separate your rubbish and recycling.
  • Do NOT dispose of waste electricals (WEEE) of any description in the rubbish, please contact reception or building manager for information, all waste electricals can be recycled at Community Base for a small fee. Please ask reception or the building manager for help.
  • Please flatten cardboard boxes and place in the large black wheelie bin.
  • All other recyclables can go loose (no bin bags or black sacks) into the four recycling bins along the wall.
  • All rubbish goes loose or bagged into the four green wheelie bins between the white columns.
  • There is a green wheelie bin for glass.
  • There is a battery recycling bin on the shelf by the free stuff table in the reception lobby.
  • There is a pen recycling box (for any broken/dried up writing implements) by the free stuff table in the reception lobby.

Recycling other stuff in the city:

  • The Green Centre has an incredible list of recycling information for specific types of object and packaging and materials, from air fresheners to zips: The Green Centre – Brighton – Green A to Z
  • They also have suggestions for re-use for many items

 

Shower 

  • There is a shower on the lower ground floor in the South Wing. 
  • Tenants are welcome to bring their own towel and soap to use this shower. 
  • Any issues, please report to reception. 

 

Shredding 

We sell blue bags for £4 (charged to quarterly invoices) from reception and when full put it in the small cupboard by the car park (we arrange recycling collection by Recorra).

Recorra run services for shredding and collecting confidential shredding which some groups here use.

There is no longer a shredder available for communal use in the building.

 

Smoking 

Smoking (including e-cigarettes) is not permitted inside the Community Base building.

  • Please do not smoke on the pavement near the reception or South Wing  the front of Community Base, please use the designated smoking areas.
  • The designated smoking areas are:
    • On the 4th floor balcony in the North Wing
    • On the 5th floor balcony in the South Wing
  • Please use the cigarette bins provided, for fire safety. Let reception or building manager know if they are full.

 

Social media 

Community Base is on: 

We want use our online presence to amplify the voices of our members and wider community, email the comms manager if you want to have a chat about how we can help promote your work. 

 

 

Storage 

Community Base has some storage space around the building, contact the Director to discuss.

If you have forgotten your storage space key, ask at reception.

Speak to reception or building manager if you have any issues with your storage space.