Meet Ben
Meet Ben, The House Manager for the Sparkford House and High Street Unilife Residences.
My focus is to ensure our High Street and Sparkford House residences are running smoothly to provide an amazing service to our residents.
What is your current role?
I am Unilife’s City Manager for Sparkford House in Winchester & High Street in Southampton.
What does a typical day look like?
A typical day at Unilife is always different and that is something I love about my job!
As the City Manager, my focus is to ensure our High Street and Sparkford House residences are running smoothly to provide an amazing service to our residents. Each day starts with our team preparing the grab and go breakfast for our residents. Throughout the week we provide delicious pastries such as croissants and pain au chocolates, and a special Fruity Friday breakfast with fresh fruit, yogurts and juices. We also have 24/7 hot drinks available ready for our residents when they head out to university for those 9am lectures!
During the day I am based at reception or around the buildings, assisting our lovely residents with anything they may need, from delivering post and parcels, scheduling in maintenance, to even just having a chat about their day. I am also in regular communication with contractors who are building an extension of 47 new studios and social spaces at our High Street residence which is very exciting.
A main part of my role involves assisting the sales and maintenance team to arrange our residents move-in and move-out, cleaning, maintenance and planning to individually welcome our new students to our amazing residences in Winchester and Southampton. We have great relationships with the local universities (University Of Winchester, Winchester School Of Art, University Of Southampton, Solent University) where I attend local residents meetings as part of our commitment to be a great neighbour and an active member of our local community.
I am also available to chat and provide support, alongside the entire Unilife team to our residents for mental health and wellbeing. Our great relationships with the Universities also allow us to signpost residents to the right support.
What has been your favourite moment at Unilife?
I am very lucky that my favourite moment comes around every year. That is of course welcoming our new and returning students to our residences in September. I feel privileged my job involves meeting students and their families from all over the world when they arrive at their new home. Our residents may have travelled 10 miles or 5000 miles to arrive at Unilife. We will be there to greet each of them individually and help with their luggage and provide a full induction to the residence to ensure our residents have the ultimate student experience.
What do you enjoy doing away from Unilife?
I am a passionate music fan who loves going to concerts and I am an avid collector of records (my prized possession is a personally signed Paul McCartney CD) and reader of books. I also fill my time being a season ticket holder at my local football team Eastleigh FC and spending time with family.
If you were a superhero, what powers would you want and why?
I’d love to have the power of teleportation. Wouldn’t it just be amazing to immediately go wherever you want at any time. It would just make life so much more convenient, and I’d like to think I’m helping the planet by no longer needing to travel by car, train or plane! I would also feel like an awesome character from a sci-fi movie!
