News

International Women’s Day: Women In Property South West’s Panel Discussion 2024

15th March 2024

This year, we were honoured to be able to sponsor Women in Property South West’s International Women’s Day Panel Discussion 2024 in Bristol.

Antonia D’Alessio, Sarah Heath, Emma Webb and Tracie Bowden from our Conveyancing Department all attended the day to hear from a panel of inspiring women, talking about their journey, success and motivations in the industry. Chaired by Maddie Difazio-Wright, the panel consisted of: Morwenna HallPriya Aggarwal-ShahPooja AgrawalLaura C Aiken and Olaide Oboh who shared their personal experiences and spoke about inclusivity and diversity in the industry.

A very big thank you to Women in Property South West and the Bristol Property Agents Association (BPAA) for organising such an insightful day!

IWD Discussion IWD Panel Discussion

Exciting news for Antonia D’Alessio!

4th March 2024

We are delighted to be able to share that Antonia, Partner in our Residential Conveyancing Department, is now the Branch Chair of Women in Property for Devon and Cornwall!

This is an incredible achievement for Antonia who says “I am very much looking forward to taking the reigns and leading such a great team. There are so many opportunities in Devon and Cornwall and it’s fantastic to see so many empowered women come together to share ideas, inspiration and opinions.”

Women In Property is about creating opportunities and expanding knowledge for women working in property and construction.
Click here to read more: https://lnkd.in/ehR4iB9B

Antonia D'Alessio

Wellbeing Week for Childrens Hospice South West

21st February 2024

Last week, we hosted our first ever ‘Wellbeing Week’, raising an incredible total of £460 for Childrens Hospice South West. This brings our total to date, to £880!

To kickstart the week, we had a Valentines themed bake off, where all offices participated in baking some delicious cakes for everyone to buy on Monday! Thank you to Henrietta at CHSW for coming to crown the winners. Claire Gubb won with her delicious white chocolate and raspberry cake, Ava Hill with her red velvet cake-sicles and Debbi Egan with a gorgeous heart shaped Victoria sponge.

On the Wednesday, Claire Strickland (former yoga instructor), kindly offered to host a lunchtime yoga session where we did 45 minutes of stretching and breathing exercises, leaving us all feeling energised and ready for the afternoon ahead!

Thursday’s activity was a lunchtime quiz – a battle between all offices! After 5 rounds of general knowledge, love, guess the lyrics and more, scores were totalled and ‘Team Hubbers’ (East Devon Private Client Team) and ‘Team Okehampton’ claimed victory!

Finally, on Friday we hosted an afternoon tea at our Financial Services office, where we had delicious scones, tea and fizz! As always, the order in which you should put cream and jam caused a divide in the room. However, the ‘cream first’ team outnumbered the ‘jam first’ crew!

We would like to extend our immense gratitude to Antonia and Laura for organising the week and for everyone who continued to donate along the way. We are all feeling incredibly fortunate to be able to continue to give our support to Childrens Hospice South West, who are such an inspiring Charity.

Cheque Presentation

 

Sidmouth Rugby Club Sponsors Day

19th February 2024

It was great to see Sidmouth Mens 1st XV take the win in an exciting match against Chard this weekend.
Despite the wet weather, spirits were high and after Sidmouth scored their first try in the first 15 minutes, the game was very much on their side, leading to an incredible 29-0 win!

Ava Hill, Marketing Assistant, went along to show her support and said ‘Despite not knowing an awful lot about rugby, it is clear that Sidmouth have a very strong team, making it a thoroughly enjoyable game to watch!’.

Thank you very much to Sidmouth Rugby Club for inviting us along!

Sidmouth Rugby Club Sponsors Day Sidmouth Rugby Club Sponsors Day Sidmouth Rugby Club Sponsors Day

Wellbeing Week: Valentines Bake off

13th February 2024

Wellbeing week 2024
Love is in the air and so are the sweet smells of our Valentines Bake Off in the kitchen!

To kick start our Wellbeing Week, in aid of Children’s Hospice South West, we started the week with a Valentines themed bake off!

A huge thank you to everyone who participated. We have some very talented bakers amongst the team, making it a tough decision for Henrietta at CHSW, who kindly agreed to come and crown the winner!

We are pleased to announce the Exeter winners are as follows:

1st place: Claire Gubb with her mouth-watering white chocolate and raspberry cake
2nd place: Ava Hill, who had made delicate red velvet cake-sicles
3rd place: Debbi Egan, with the gorgeous Valentine’s Victoria sponge

Thank you to our East Devon Hub and Crediton for also cooking up some delicious treats too!

Now the winners have been crowned, it is time for everyone to tuck in!

CakeCake

Cake pops

Networking Breakfast for Children’s Hospice South West

2nd February 2024

Members from our East Devon Hub: Tracie Bowden, Emma Webb, Claire Strickland and Sue-Ellen Lee thoroughly enjoyed attending a networking breakfast, hosted by Children’s Hospice South West, at THE PIG Hotel last week!

Children’s Hospice South West have been our chosen charity of the year, so it was great to show them some support whilst learning more about the wonderful work they do. Thank you to THE PIG Hotel for a delicious breakfast too!

Santa comes to Okehampton!

21st December 2023

Gilbert Stephens was delighted to sponsor the Okehampton Round Table Christmas Santa Sleigh drive by, for the fourth year running, this year.

This event runs annually throughout the festive season and is organised by the Okehampton District Round Table. It is a much enjoyed part of Okehampton’s Christmas Celebrations, which sees Santa and his busy elves travel across the town and surrounding areas, spreading cheer and delivering treats to children (and even our 4 legged friends!)

The sponsorship money, provided by Gilbert Stephens, went towards the Christmas Sleigh event and towards the maintenance of the sleigh itself. Okehampton Round Table also support the local Food Bank, which is a support line for many in the community, especially at Christmas time.

You can keep up to date with the Sleigh and future events on the Round Table’s Facebook here.

Festive opening hours 2023/24

21st December 2023

Just a reminder of our opening times over the festive period. 🎄

Gilbert Stephens would like to wish all clients and colleagues a very happy Christmas and New Year. We look forward to seeing you in 2024!

Christmas is on it’s way!

22nd November 2023

Yesterday officially marked the 1st day of Christmas for us here at Gilbert Stephens, and what a busy few weeks we are going to have!

It all kicks off with the Ottery St Mary Christmas Tree Festival, running from today until 26th November. We have a beautiful Christmas Tree in the Ottery Parish Church again this year, which has kindly been decorated by Claire Collett.

This November marks 5 years since we sadly lost Liz Govier, a Private Client Solicitor at our Ottery office. Liz used to decorate this tree every year and now her daughter, Claire, continues the tradition in her memory.

Do drop by and have a look at the wonderful Christmas trees in the church. They will be open and serving refreshments between 11am to 5pm, Monday to Saturday, and from 11am to 4pm on Sunday.

We will also be open on the evening of Friday 24th November for Ottery’s Festive Cheer event, so please drop by and join us for some mulled wine, mince pies and of course, chocolate for the kids!

We hope to see you there!

Fundraising week for Childrens Hospice South West

14th November 2023

We are pleased to announce that in one week alone, we raised an incredible total of £430 for Childrens Hospice South West, which has been our chosen charity of the year.

Children’s Hospice provide care for children who have life limiting conditions and are not expected to live into adulthood, whilst also supporting their whole family.

As part of our fundraising initiatives, we hosted a fundraising week, solely dedicated to raising as much as we could for the charity. This involved baking, games and even arm wrestling! Antonia and Laura from our Residential Conveyancing Department very kindly organised the week. It was a huge success amongst the team, leaving everyone in such high spirits! Here is what we did:

Day 1 – Halloween Bake off

Over the weekend, some of the team got their bakers hats on and baked up spooky treats for everyone to enjoy! Of course, it wouldn’t be a real bake off without some friendly competition, so Henrietta and Mary from CHSW had the tricky task of crowning the winner of the bake off.

After much anticipation and plenty of cake consumed, Jen was crowned winner with her pumpkin patch chocolate orange cake! She was closely followed by Debbi in 2nd place with her spider web mint chocolate tart and Ava in 3rd place with her spooky Oreo cupcakes!

Day 2 – Lunchtime Quiz

After 5 tense rounds of questions involving music, general knowledge and even a special round on CHSW, it was time to add up the scores… Leading to our quote of the day from Sue in accounts: ‘Do I have to add this all up?’ Thank you, Sue, for making us all chuckle!

Congratulations to the Litigation department who claimed victory after scores were carefully added up – we hope you enjoy your well-earned sweet treats!

Day 3 – Guess the baby competition

This was a favourite amongst the team here at GS!

17 baby photos were submitted, and everyone was given the task of guessing who was who! This certainly started some giggles around the office, especially with most of the office mistaking Ellen for Dan!

Well done to our winner, Louise, who got 11 out of 17 baby photos correct!

Day 4 – Games day

Over the course of the day, we had a series of games and competitions for everyone to get involved in, starting off tame and getting more competitive as the day went on!

In the morning, we had 2 kitchen competitions: Guess the number of sweets in the jar and name the elephant. Well done to Nigel for naming the elephant ‘Paul’ and well done to Simon C for guessing the number of sweets in the jar! Both winners had the opportunity to take home their prizes, the elephant, and the sweet jar. However, both have started a bidding war, where all proceeds will go to CHSW.

Finally, the moment everyone had been waiting for… ‘The Great Gilbert Stephens Arm Wrestle’! Sarah Heath started strong, beating Mandy, Maddy AND Antonia. However, when Sarah took on Paul Kibbler, she was unfortunately defeated and lost her place as champion. Paul took on both Simon C and Mark Perry but lost to Mark at the last minute. Lunchtime was coming to an end, meaning it was time to find someone to take on Mark. Antonia hunted high and low around the office for someone and found IT Simon! After an epic battle between the two, with Paul adjudicating, Simon claimed victory and was the winner of ‘The Great Gilbert Stephens Arm Wrestle’.

Day 5 – dress down Friday (green theme)

To finish off our week, it was dress down Friday, with a green twist for Childrens Hospice. There was also a prize for the best dressed, which went to Robin Hood (aka Jen!).

Overall, it has been such a positive week and thank you again to Antonia and Laura for organising it – you both did a splendid job! We would also like to give a big thank you to everyone for taking part and donating throughout the week.