Pennine Communities Federation of
|
5 Lister Court |
That was the year that was!
It's a year since the Federation held its Special General Meeting to introduce the new structure and changes.
At the time some people were going round saying "It'll not work" and "This will be the end of the Federation", but there were others who knew we had to introduce change and that if we didn't then the Federation would not have a future.
We're pleased to say that the 'knockers' were wrong!!!! When you look back at the things we've done over the last 12 months, you can see that a lot has been achieved. The great thing is that the workload has been spread over a number of people, rather than it all being done by two or three.
We'd be liars if we said everything was perfect; finding a suitable venue for meetings has been a problem since the Board Room at Bull Green House was relocated to Brighouse but we think we've now sorted it by using the Town Hall. Also, change has been slow but then the best sort of change usually is.
What is noticeable is that the Management Team are working well together and are committed to stamping out the back-biting which stopped people from wanting to be part of the Federation's management - let's face, it who wants to be continually rung up by people who just want to cause trouble. We are now committed to only doing our business in meetings.
Having got the 1st year under our belts, we've now got a clearer idea of where we are going. Top of the agenda for next year is to start having more influence on Pennine's service delivery and policies - as soon as the AGM is out of the way we're going to start having regular meetings with Amanda Garrard to discuss how we can do this.
We thought it would be good to give you a quick re-cap on the work we've done over the past 12 months, starting off with the meetings:
| Date | Attend -ance | Venue | Discussion Topics |
| 25/10/06 | 23 | Bull Green House | Special General Meeting |
| 12/12/06 | 27 | Bull Green House | Investment |
| Synergy | |||
| Pennine Growth | |||
| Housing Officer Patch changes | |||
| Estate Walkabouts | |||
| Decoration Allowances | |||
| 28/02/07 | 35 | Bull Green House | Respect |
| Neighbourhood Agreements | |||
| Garage Rent Increases | |||
| Rent Increases | |||
| Support Charges | |||
| Calderdale Housing Strategy | |||
| Smoking Ban | |||
| Involvement Policy | |||
| 25/04/07 | 23 | Salvation Army Hall | Void Guard |
| Decorations Grant | |||
| Local Area Agreements | |||
| 27/06/07 | 22 | Library | Prof Hills' Review |
| Martin Cave's Report | |||
| Tenant Satisfaction | |||
| PH2K Membership | |||
| RESPECT | |||
| 29/08/07 | 26 | Town Hall | Complaints Policy |
| Respect Action Plan | |||
| Mobile Phone Masts | |||
| Decoration Grant | |||
| Mixenden Community Link |
That was the year that was! Cont.......
As you can see from the table on page 1, there's been plenty of discussion in our meetings. We feel the meetings have gone from strength to strength, in fact Sue Hodgson commented after the last meeting "that was the best Federation meeting I've been to in years, I really enjoyed it" - praise indeed!
We'd like to thank the following speakers for their contribution to making our meetings a success:
Amanda Garrard Mark Thompson
Janette Dunne Jonathan Howarth
Adrian Gordon Lisa Jackson
We hope that as the year has gone on our meetings have become livelier, with lots of opportunity for everyone to contribute. At the last two meetings we've broken into small discussion groups and this has led to the meetings being more interesting for everyone.
It's not just about meetings, the last year has seen quite a lot of activity outside of the meetings. We've had two social events:
New Year party, which was a fantastic success
Quiz Night - see next column
The Working Groups have had a successful 1st year. The Big Picture Group, led by Ruth Rider have attended Conferences, had meetings with Council Officers and gone along to Council Planning Meetings.
The Training Group has been running the IT workshops, these have supported quite a few of our member TARA's to produce newsletters, posters and minutes. They are currently planning a Committee Skills course and an Involving Young People Conference which will take place early next year - watch this space.
Eric Sutcliffe has successfully steered the TARA Support Group - often single handed but this hasn't stopped him from getting out and about visiting Barker Close, Heptonstall & Twin Towers TA's. The TARA Support Group has also produced a new information leaflet which explains the role of the Federation and encourages new Tenants Associations to get involved. We've discussed expanding the role of this working group to take on organising more social events but can only do this if more people are willing to roll up their sleeves and get involved!
Finally, our View Day to Green Vale Homes last week went really well - see next page for details - and our Website is still being visited by people from all over the world.
Big, big thank you to everyone who's worked so hard to make this year a success.
Quiz Night Success Story
On the 7th September we held our 1st Quiz Night in the NALGO Bar, Halifax. What a great success it turned out to be, we think everyone attending had a fantastic evening. The pie & pea supper and the cheap bar made it a really enjoyable social event.
Peter Dawson from Pennine Housing volunteered his services for the evening by both organising the questions and acting as Quiz Master. The questions covered every year of the last century and hopefully everyone was able to answer something.
Three teams fought it out to become Pennine Federation's 1st Quiz Champions - there was a trophy for the winning team and a cheque for £100 to be spent on a community activity.
It has to be said that Barker House's 'Norma's Naughties' worked very hard to ensure they got the 'booby prize', this included rubber phones so they can phone a friend next time, and glasses cleaners to help them see things more clearly.
A special thank you needs to go to the team from Wisewood who travelled all the way from Sheffield to take part and to Peter Dawson for giving up his Friday night.
Hopefully, next year even more teams will be vying to get their names on the Quiz Champions trophy.
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.
The Green Vale trip took place last week and we hope that everyone was really impressed with both the hospitality we were given and the work that is being done to improve the housing stock.
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; not only were the flats great to look at, they were also eco-friendly, fitted with insulated panels to prevent heat loss - they are hoping that the tenants will hardly ever have to switch their heating on, making the properties very cheap to run.
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.
|
Pennine Communities Federation of Tenants & Residents Associations ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 7.00pm Wednesday 31st October 2007 TOWN HALL, HALIFAX EVERYBODY WELCOME |
|
Special performance of the Elder Abuse play Cheese and Wine Review of the year Don't miss it! |
|
Using the Fed' Office
|
How to contact us: |
| Home | About PCFTRA | What we do | Fed Events | Fed Meetings |
| Further Info | Member TARAs | Newsletters | Links | Find/Contact us |