Green Vale Homes View Day

At our June meeting we decided it was time for us to go exploring a little further afield. So, this year rather than having our usual Calderdale View Day we decided that we would run two View Days, the first to Rossendale to look at what Green Vale Homes are doing to modernise their homes and estates and the second, which will be held in November, to look at the new Pennine Sheffield communities.

We were particularly impressed with the quality of the kitchens and bathrooms which are now being fitted as standard and the work they are doing to speed up adaptations.

Part of the visit included looking around Green Vale Homes' first new build properties. It's hard to believe that social landlords can now build to this standard.

It was also good that we were joined by representative from the three Sheffield estates and Green Vale tenant board members - we need to keep building these relationships, so that we can jointly influence Trans-Pennine policy.

A very big thank you to Mary, Sharon and Derek from Green Vale Homes for organising the day.

Have you got what it takes to help the Fed' grow?

It's our AGM next week and we're looking for more volunteers to get involved and help build on the successes of this year.

Now that we've spread the workload between a number of people, being involved shouldn't take up more than a few hours each month - at the most. You don't need any special skills either - just a commitment to making Pennine estates better places to live, a sense of humour and a desire to work as part of a team.

What we're looking for are people who can be positive about the Federation - we know it's not perfect but we are trying our best and there's nothing more off-putting than when you have to listen to people constantly criticising!

In the past people have been reluctant to get involved because the Fed' Management was seen as a clique but that's now changed.

Next year it would be really great if we could organise more training events for our members, to enable us to have a more powerful voice and more social events, so we can build a stronger bond between TA's but in order to do this, we need more people to volunteer their time.

As you can never predict the outcome of elections, we need to make sure that those people who've volunteered their time this year get a big pat on the back and a round of applause for doing such a good job.

So, a great big thank you to (in alphabetical order) Mary Battye, Margaret Coupe, Richard Guillot, Chris Lates, Don Mclean, Sue Molineux, Ruth Rider, Bill Stafford, Eric Sutcliffe and Bert Swaine for all of their hard work.

Don't miss the AGM

Next week's AGM promises to be a really great evening. We've got the Sheltered Officers performing their Elder Abuse play, there will also be Cheese and Wine on offer, as well as the election and officers reports.

Why not encourage other members of your association to come along.