Southend Tenants and Residents Federation

Minutes of the meeting held on

Tuesday 24th February 2015.

S Oreilley Chair / SO / Dispersed Properties / K Fewster / KF / Scott Hose BV
P Beckwith / PB / Snakes Lane BV / J Oliver / JO / Rothwell Close/Observer
D Nicholls / DN / Mendip AG / N Burn / NB / Sherwood way BV
J Pickering / JP / Four Eagles RA / J Butler / JBu / Four eagles RA
C McPhillips / CM / Four Eagles RA/Observer / G Ashdown / GA / Victory AG
J Bromley / JB / Observer / MB Ali / MA / Observer
G Moore / GM / Observer / B Oreilley / BOr / Observer
T Swinney / TS / Observer/STRF Committee / C Thipthorp / CT / Minute Taker

Invited Guests;

Julia Pack / JP / Communication/Marketing SEH / Wendy Greenberg / WG / Vice Chair SEH Board
Elizabeth Mansfield / EM / SEH Board / Jo Butler / JO / SEH Board
Mary Betson / MB / SEH Board / Mike Assenheim / MA / SEH Board

Action

1. / Chairs Opening Address/Apologies.
SO opened the meeting and welcomed all the guests and asked them to introduce themselves when it was there time on the agenda.
SO asked members if it was alright with them if JP went first so she could leave.
This was agreed.
Apologies were accepted from B Tilley, J Laplain, M Ellis, P Somerville, P Nightingale. J Grindall.
2. / Matters arising not covered by the Agenda/ Agree Minutes.
Agenda item 2. GA is now receiving items for web site.
Agenda item 3 should have read staff missing.
Minutes were agreed by GA seconded by NB.
SO said the repairs sheet is going round and she sent last month’s report to Paul Longman and received a reply if agreeable to member it will be attached to the minutes.
SO also had a letter about sheltered from Cllr Mark Flewit again would member like the letter and replied attached to the minutes?
All agreed to them going out with the minutes.
NB said this was not mentioned at the focus group meeting.
SO replied that she was unable to attend that meeting and asked PL to mention it, next time she will copy in other members in the e-mail.
WG said it was a good idea to copy in residents so they know what is happening.
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33 / Meet the Board
SO asked the Board Members to introduce themselves and a brief description of their role.
MB sent apologies for Mike Assenheim as he is caught up downstairs in another meeting and will join us as soon as he can.
WG said she has been as Resident Board member for six years and Vice Chair for two of these years.
WG really enjoys her time on the Board.
EM explained she is new to the Board and was the first member to have a telephone interview.
EM also enjoys her time on the Board and has learnt a lot since joining the Board.
MBu said she represents the Council on the Board and this is her first year.
NB asked what was happening in the future as we are all aware that SEH contract is up next year and residents are worried about going back to the Council.
SO said that the Board Members were here to represent the Board not as Councillors.
MB explained that although she is a Councillor her role is to represent SEH in all matters.
MB went on to say that there will be changes in the future and there will be a report coming to the Council soon and ask how the residents felt about the proposed changes to our housing.
SO went round the table and asked residents to say what they thought about SEH and the Council.
GA said he would like to see SEH continue the Council Housing Working Party have not given us any feed back or requested to speak to us about our future.
GM said he feels that it is better under SEH as work is done.
JBu said she felt that SEH were more approachable than the Council and things have been much better since SEH took over.
MB queried why JB felt that the Council were unapproachable.
JBu replied that it was the bureaucracies that got residents down which made them feel uncomfortable.
GA said he agreed it was as if it was them and us.
CM said she felt the same way if there is a problem they sort it.
JP said that she felt that by having SEH in place it enables us to have a voice and if we went over we would lose that.
TS felt that it should always be SEH
JB agreed with this.
NB said that 90% of his residents are in favour of SEH.
DN said that the Scrutiny Panel has now done three areas of SEH and our findings have been implemented and if we go back to the Council we would failing the residents as it is doubtful the Council will let it continue.
JO said she would like to stay SEH
ER thought that SEH were brilliant organisation and has found them very supportive.
PB said she felt the same.
KF agreed with this statement.
SO felt we should stay SEH and agrees they are unapproachable any issues you have with SBC it is a struggle to get them sorted.
GA said that Federation was started when we were SBC and we have always had a voice but since SEH came we all have much more.
Members round the table agree with this.
WG said SEH have set up a resident scrutiny forum which is doing a brilliant job scrutinising the company which is a great help to the Board as it enables us to see what is working well and what is not so good.
SO said scrutiny looks at the whole service both good and bad.
WG said this is what makes it so good as residents are listened too and if action is needed it is taken.
NB said another example is he along with other residents attend the repairs meeting and tonight a board is going round for residents to list their complaints about repairs this get sent to Paul Longman who then sends a reply back about what residents have said.
MB thanked us for the input and found it very useful.
WG said Tony Churton Chair of the Board sent his apologies for not being able to attend
WG said sadly Peter Goldsmith Independent Board Member has resigned from the Board and he will be missed.
WG said they have been working with HQN on Board appraisals for them to help us get the best out of the Board especially as we are now down to ten members. HQN report is due out soon and Federation will be kept updated on it.
WG sais that Stuart Long has been doing a lot of work across the Borough with various projects and he will be attend a Board meeting to give a presentation to the Board of what is going on in the Borough.
A meeting was held with WG, S Long and a lady from the Council have obtained best start funding which is £40million the Council are going to work with us on how the money could be best used
MA apologised for being late but the meeting finished later than anticipated.
MA said he has been on the Board for eight years and really enjoys it.
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14 / Annual Report Julia Pack.
JP introduced herself and explained that the annual report is not designated to one person. As this is no longer a legal requirement and it got forgotten.
She was asked in July to get it done by October she took this on herself
JP had just attended a conference where another housing group had used the idea of a calendar
JP took this idea to the Communications group and they agreed to go with the idea.
JP apologised for any upset that has been caused and explained that it was human error.
JP has now taken on this role and this year will start earlier and include all residents who wish to help.
JP explained that this year SEH would like to ask what we want this year it has been suggested that we do something in “Insight” like a four page spread or do another calendar and asked for feedback on this years calendar.
Majority of members loved the idea of a calendar ,one resident did not like calendars suggestions from the members were.
Make the writing squares bigger and picture smaller.
Have more vibrant pictures to attract the younger residents.
Have a photo competition for residents to take pictures of Southend for the Calendar.
Use community event photos on the August page.
Residents did not realise that the calendar contained the annual report.
SO said that in the past there was a separate group set up just for the annual report last year it did not happen and members were upset that it just went to the Communications Focus Group and did not come to Federation.
Members would like to see it come to Federation this year before it went to print.
JP replied that you can never please everyone last year donations covered some of the cost and this year we will try and get more donations to cover the whole cost, and asked how would members like to proceed this year.
General feeling round the table was that a mistake was made last year and this should have been highlighted through resident involvement but due to restructure it was not picked up
It was agreed that a separate group be set up.
It was agreed that all photos be submitted by the end of July and a group be set up to judge.
A letter to go out to all resident reps to join the Annual report group.
A suggestion was made to look into local printers to see if the cost would be cheaper.
JP suggested that this year we have two A4 sheets with information all-round the edge with picture on one page and the calendar on the other.
Members thought this to be a good idea.
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19 / Community Event Update Shirley Oreilley
SO said that we have booked the back field for parking as last year no-one was willing to park over the road at the roots hall carpark and our volunteers had a hard time over it.
KF has agreed to help arrange a bake off and this year we will be opening it up to all including SEH staff.
We are still working on getting outside funding for the event.
In place so far are the toilets which we managed to get for the same price as last year, a dog agility show with rescue dogs, we will not be having a dog show where people bring their pets, as we do not have the help that is needed to do this.
ER said that they are looking at catering for gluten free cakes.
KF said she has baked some for her residents to try and they loved them apart from one which she will not do again.
SO said this year we are looking at funding to provide free food and will give people a survey so they can then go and collect their food once the survey is complete.
WG said that this was a good idea and along with the Bake off it sounds like a great day.
SO went on to explain that we have put some money from this event over the past three years in a separate bank account, and any area that comes to us to say that they never have anything going on, we will go over there with a couple of gazebo’s and a bouncy castle and work to try and get the community together.
We also have bid forms where if a group needs funding for an event they can apply . Just recently one group asked for funding for a microwave and a tea urn for an event which was a great success.
CM said the items were a great help on the day and everyone enjoyed themselves.
WG said she has been trying to arrange an event on the bit of green at the back of Danescroft.
SO replied that this could be looked into, as this is the sort of thing we are trying to do to bring communities together.
SO said that all cakes entered will be sold in the tea tent and the money raised will go towards our Charity Special Baby Care Unit.
MA said he would bake a cake for the event as he is a qualified pastry cook.
MBA said that he has just left a meeting with the national health practitioners and now every patient is now a member.
MB explained that now every doctors surgery is to set up a group of residents to meet round the table to discuss what they wish to see in that surgery.
MA said that he received an e-mail from his surgery saying that if you do not want to be part of this you must inform the surgery.
MBA said he was very disappointed that no food evaluation has been done on the recent food event.
SO said that this was not a Federation thing but run by the office and Sam Elliott is collating the surveys.
6. / STRF Office Shirley Oreilley
SO said the office is in Chilton and the problems have are being sorted out and should be ready soon.
7. / Any Other Business.
NB said that a trip to Thurrock is being arranged to look at how residents and staff have adapted to the new working practises that our caretakers will be following from April.
DN said that the new scrutiny has now begun on Sheltered Housing.
MB thanked us for inviting the Board along as it has given us an insight on how hard our residents work.
MBA asked SO if she would attend the new action group at Shoebury to give a Federation Update.
SO “replied that there were four members of that group round the table which are able to do this.
GA asked when were we going to have some feedback from the Learning Exchange
8. / Chair to close Meeting.
SO thanked all for attending and closed the meeting.

*Note from the secretary; Due to an administration error Giles Tofield will be attending a future meeting.

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