Written by Residents for Residents. Contact us on strf.org.uk. Pages 6-9 New members required for Residents Scrutiny Forum Page 11 Join in our new Boules Group Page 12 Out of Hours 2 Coffee morning 12 Meet the Federation 3 Community Event 13 Golden Mile 4-5 Old Southend 14/15 A Fun Summer 6-9 Nomination Form 16 SEH to stay 10 Scrutiny 11 Squatters on council land 11 2014 Page 13 Issue 12
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Written by Residents for Residents. Contact us on strf.org.uk.
Pages
6-9
New members required for Residents Scrutiny Forum Page 11
Join in our new Boules Group
Page 12
Out of Hours 2 Coffee morning 12
Meet the Federation 3 Community Event 13
Golden Mile 4-5 Old Southend 14/15
A Fun Summer 6-9 Nomination Form 16
SEH to stay 10
Scrutiny 11
Squatters on council land 11
2014 Page 13
Issue 12
2
Chair’s Update
Time goes so quick, here is yet another Edition of the Fed Mag.
Firstly I would like to say a great big thank you to all who were
involved with the community event - Organisers, Helpers on the Day
& Estuary. I would also like to mention the entertainment on the Day
- Starlight Productions, Elvis Impersonator (Pat Byrne), Tamil Dancers, Mushroom
Theatre Company and Bon Marche - every one of you pulled a crowd so well done to you
all and once again thank you.
I would also like to make all residents aware the Task and Finish group have drawn a
conclusion as to whether we go back in house or stay as South Essex Homes. See page
10 for a full update.
Many residents were awarded trophies for all the hard work they do during the year at a
presentation event at the Cliffs by South Essex Homes. Also the Garden in Bloom award
winners were included in this event, it was great to see so many people in attendance
and being recognised, Thank you South Essex Homes.
Out of Hours Service When a resident telephones South Essex Homes ‘Out of Hours’ service, a member of the Careline
team will deal with their enquiry. The Careline team treat emergency calls as a priority e.g. calls
from residents who have triggered their personal alarms (as they may require medical / emergency
services) before dealing with any general housing / repair issues.
To prevent any out of hours repairs calls being missed it was arranged to install an answer phone
facility to assist during busy periods. To improve this service South Essex Homes are currently
looking at the option to incorporate a queuing system to our service, so that callers have an
informed choice on their position in the queue whilst waiting to make contact with Careline, a
message will be played so that residents with non-emergency calls have the option to contact us
via email to reduce the waiting time or to leave a message so that an officer can return their call
once they become available In relation to covering additional calls during
an emergency (e.g. flooding), South Essex Homes
also arrange for additional staff to provide further
assistance in answering calls when required.
3
Chair
Shirley O’Reilly
Shirley Oreilly has been returned as Chair of the Federation. Shirley is an active member, she sits on the repairs group with both contractors and senior managers.
Shirley is dedicated to making sure every resident has a voice.
She also loves to receive your nominations for the Good Neighbour and Golden
Mile awards
Vice Chair
Malcolm Ellis
This year is the first time that Malcolm has been elected for the role of Vice Chair.
Malcolm is the present Chair of Triangle Residents Association and works hard for the 400 residents it represents. He also spends a lot of time mentoring other residents in using a computer among
other things.
Treasurer
Diane Nicholls.
Again it is another first time for Diane to join the committee. Diane is secretary of the Mendip Wildlife Garden which she devotes a lot of time to. She is also the Treasurer for the Mendip and Treecot Residents Association and the Chair of the Residents Scrutiny Forum
Committee Member Terry Swinney.
Terry is also a new member on the Federation Committee. Terry is the Chair of WASH Residents association and cares about the residents who come under this group.
Committee Member Jackie Butler
Jackie is on the committee of a new resident association “The Four Eagles” She is involved with the residents of the area and is helping to organise a children's Christmas party and one for the adults in the area the Four Eagles Represent.
Continued on page10
4
Diane Nicholls Mendip
I would like to put Diane Nicholls forward for
an award as I believe not only does she do a
lot in the community for all the residents, but
as a rep she also does anything needed for
her immediate neighbours. Nothing is too big
to ask Diane, she is always willing to help.
However it is not often I ever hear people
saying a simple "thank you for the hard work
and effort she puts in".
Mrs. Lena Pester (The Brambles)
The nominator said: “This lady is such a helpful
person who goes out of her way to assist everyone.
She is a great source of comfort to me and will
always take time to listen.”
Lena also helps other residents in the unit by doing
shopping for them.
Mrs Lilian Frost (Trafford House)
The nominator said: “She has a heart of gold, I
have never had such a neighbour before, she
will help anyone out, she has had a lot of ill
health herself but that does not stop her
helping others. She is an absolute darling.”
5
Caretaking Team Staff
Shirley said: “These guys worked wonders for
3 days over the community event - they
collected items from my house with no hassle
or complaints and there was a lot of stuff on
the day. They all worked their socks off
helping in any way they could, after the event
they helped pack up stalls and litter-picked
and the next day they returned everything
back to my house for me to sort out.”
Caretaker Ivor
This nomination came from the Residents
of Snakes Lane.
They wrote “The most helpful Caretaker
we have ever had here.
“Thank you Ivor for doing such a good
Job.”
6
Community Event
On August 7th Ben O’Reilly in the guise
of Peppa Pig came to Southchurch
Park.
Ben did a grand job considering
how hot it was and he managed
to collect £26 in his tin for the
PDSA.
When he got to hot he relaxed
by going on the Bucking Bronco.
Bert Goodbourn is a SEH resident who helped in setting up “The
Village”, which is held on Sunday Mornings near Southend Airport .
Members of the public are welcome to go along and see some of
the beautiful things that people who are disabled create.
Bert came along and displayed some of his excellent paintings
which were a joy to view.
Thank you Bert for sharing these with us.
The very young people had their own crèche which was run by
Estuary Housing Crèche. Estuary joined forces with us in May and
agreed to provide something for the very young and a tea/coffee
area so that visitors could sit and enjoy a reasonably priced cuppa
and mums and dads could keep an eye on their children.
Once again South Essex Homes, Southend Borough Council and
charity organisations came along to support us in strength.
Visitors found their displays eye catching and informative.
We must not forget PH Jones, Mitie, TSG, Kier and Valliant as
without their donations we
could not have done as well as
we did. A BIG thank you from
the committee. Essex Police and
CDRP also came along to
support us and a lot of visitors
were directed to them to discuss
their problems.
7
This year we purchased people counters (clickers) at the cost of £11.80 for eight.
The Clickers recorded a total of 3052. This is what we have based our costs on.
Estuary joined us this year and gave a £2000 donation. This year we added to the young people’s
entertainment and booked Trampolines and bucking Bronco which went down well. We covered the costs
of the Bouncy Castles but made a small loss on the trampolines and the Bucking Bronco due to human error.
Over £685 was collected for the PDSA.
A cheque will be presented to them at the
Awards Ceremony.
Bon Marche put on a splendid fashion show
and our six volunteers did a wonderful job of
modelling
The Committee are very proud that the six
ladies agreed to give up their time not only to
model but go down to Bon Marche to select the clothes they wore. Well done and thank you.
A group of young people who were doing volunteering towards an award turned up early in the morning and
helped us set up and worked hard during the event getting surveys filled in. They did a marvellous job .
The £25 shopping voucher for completing the survey was won by
Miss K Robertson.
Enjoying the Fashion Show
8
Bournes Green Fun Day
On August 21st three ladies, one from Bewley Court and two from Longbow, organised a fun day to help
enhance community relations . This event came about through the community circle meetings.
It can be very difficult living in a tower block and not knowing your neighbours and this is why Erica, Chris
and Rose came up with the idea to do something for the community to try and bring it together.
It was a wonderful event and the residents came along and had a very good time and asked when the next
one was.
The Mayor and Mayoress attended and walked round all the stalls talking to the residents before drawing the raffle.
Coleman Street Carnival.
Coleman Street came alive to the sound of drums on August 2nd when the
residents from the Town Centre Tower Blocks came together to enjoy a fun
filled day. There were many activities for the young people including playing
the drums with the professionals.
There were also a lot of information stands where the residents could go for
help and advice.
Coleman Street Group came about when the four tower Blocks were having bad press in 2011 and South Essex
Homes set up a Community Circle to help resolve the problems that the four blocks were having. Because of
the success of the circle and how it brought all the four blocks together with the help of Sam Elliott (Resident
Involvement Officer) they decided to hold a small event in 2012 this was a success and this year they decided
to hold a bigger one.
It was held in the centre of Pennine, Malvern and Chiltern. Storehouse provided free Tea and Coffee with
Danish pastries during the morning and free hamburgers. It was a very good day and it brought the residents
together and a good time was had by all.
Chair of Federation
No Good Trying to Hide
Some pictures of the day.
9
Four Eagles Residents Association
Gazebo on the Green
In March a new committee was elected for the Four Eagles Residents
Association. The first action that the Chair and Committee decided on was
to hold an event to try to get residents from the area to say what activity
they would like to see take place to help bring the Community together.
June 5th saw all the committee set up a gazebo on the green and offered
tea and coffee to passing people and asked what sort of event they would
like to see and would they attend.
There was also a Guess the Teddy’s Name and sweets for the young people
coming home from school.
There was an overwhelming request that they hold a children's Christmas
Party.
This has now been organised and invitations will be going out to Fraser
Close, Cunningham Close, Kingfisher Close and Sandpiper Close.
Winner of the Guess The
Teddy's Name with two of the
committee members and two
residents
Nicholson House
17th August saw Nicholson House open its doors for their Annual Bazaar.
Despite the bad weather forecast the Sheltered Housing Officer Maria
Scanlon and the residents who had organised it were out in the garden at
7.30am putting it all together.
This year the organisers decided to have a star prize of a flat screen
television as well as a raffle which went down well and helped boost the funds for the unit. These funds help to
maintain the garden and the monthly meal and entertainment
among other things that resident request for the unit.
The crowds turned out and filled the lounge and garden till the
wind and the rain came and they all disappeared, leaving the
soggy helpers to put everything away for next year.
Nicholson also won an award in the Gardens in Bloom
competition.
Victory Residents Association.
Victory Residents Association set up an information morning on the East Road
Estate on the 21st August. There was loads of information and freebies. They
also did a ‘Name the Animal’ (Residents could not decide what it was meant to
be) and free tea of coffee.
Not many residents bothered to go which was a shame as their committee put
a lot of hard work into this venture.
10
Southend Tenants and Residents Federation.
At the October meeting, the members were introduced to the new Chair of the
Board Tony Churton and Vice Chair Wendy Greenberg.
The Board extended its thanks to all the staff that assisted the residents of Nestuda House
affected by the recent flooding due to an exceptional heavy rainfall.
The National Housing for Older People Awards. This is a national award for the UK’s Best
Retirement Home for which residents nominate the scheme they live in. Trafford House won
a Silver award and Bishop House won the Gold award. The Board extended their
congratulations to Hazel Spires and Joanne Pullibank, Sheltered Housing Officers for Trafford
and Bishop, and presented them both with a bouquet of flowers.
Echo Business Awards. SEH sponsored the “Community Awards” category. The winners
were HARP, Hood Group and Trust Links.
The Federation extended their thanks to the previous Chair Phil Lyons and thanked him for
the work he has done over the past seven years.
Chief Executive of South Essex Homes Mike Gatrell gave us the news that the Fed have been
waiting for. The task and finish group have concluded their report on the future of our
housing and was pleased to tell us that SEH will be in place at least till 2016.
The full report is on our website www.strf.org.uk
Continued from page 3.
You have seen our new committee who most of them are new faces. The Chair would like to
thank the previous committee for their work and give a warm welcome to the new
committee. This coming year is going to be a busy year with changes that are bound to take
place in SEH and the committee will have to make sure these changes do not affect the
service we have.
The Chair noticed that I was not on page three (my excuse was run out of room) Well here
are my details;
Secretary Carol Thipthorp who is also the elected editor of the Fed Mag among various bits and pieces I do. My contact details are: Telephone: 01702 460985 E-mail: [email protected]