COME ALONG TO OUR ANNUAL CONFERENCE..............

This year's conference is on Sunday 26th October, 10am - 4pm. The event is called Economical communities and is themed around saving money and the environment. There will be discussion workshops for you to decide how money should be spent on our services, interactive sessions on how to grow your own fruit and veg, energy efficiency tips, free lunch, live entertainment and much more. Contact us today to book your place.

Annual Tenants & Leaseholders Conference 2007

"Top of the Class"

                

 

 

 

 

This year’s annual conference in October was held at Radcliffe Civic Suite and was one of a kind with delegates being treated with a few surprises, taking them back to those school days.  It was our best attendance yet with 105 tenants and leaseholders turning up, including 20 children.

Susan Jordan, Chief Executive opened the event with a snapshot of what’s been happening at Six Town Housing over the past year and what’s up and coming for 2008.  She spoke of our increased caretaking team, improved responses to anti social behaviour and fitting fire alarms with the local fire brigade. She also spoke of our plans for 2008, integrating the repairs service, and developing a home improvement agency service across the borough to assist customers with disabilities.

The Great Repairs Debate involved a speech by Steve Harrington, our new Head of Repairs and Maintenance on Prioritising repairs and response rates and 4 different themed workshops were held for residents to debate repairs issues.  The themes were:

• Repairs to your home
• Planned and cyclical repairs
• Improving your home
• Communal provision

The workshops explored a range of issues, for example, what our customers thought about the current repairs service and ideas to improve it, the standards that tenants expect from contractors and Six Town Housing when carrying out home improvement work.  The workshops proved to be as beneficial for the customers as it was for us.

There was the opportunity for attendees to speak directly with the people who provide the services about their issues and residents could browse round the many information stands, which offered useful advice and freebies.  These included the police, fire service, citizens advice, Housing Benefits, Access and Advice Team, Strategic Housing, Tenants and Residents Associations Consultative Committee (TRACC), BEATs (doing health tests), different departments at Six Town Housing (Asset and Investment Team, Repairs service, Energy and Efficiency, Rents Team to name but a few.)

The afternoon session was really something quite different.  To bring a more fun element to our event, we took people back to school with team based games and lessons.  Each table was split into a school class and were tested on different subjects: inventions, national anthems and flags, name the composer, design the fastest paper aeroplane, design a community poster, sing-along with kazoos and dancing.  Headmaster Sydney Nettleship and his teaching staff hosted the classes and took on their roles quite realistically, even giving some lines as punishment!  Residents really got into the swing of the sessions and both children and adults enjoyed themselves. Medals were given out to the class that scored the most in lessons and a special mention was given to Mrs E O’Hara, our eldest attendee at 91 years who designed a  fantastic community poster. 

To keep with the school theme, there was a tuck shop with a quiz to win traditional sweet favourites.  There were free giveaways and a charity tombola which made £105, donated to Bury Hospice.  There were four lucky prize draw winners receiving a luxury food hamper, digital camera, juicer and satellite navigator.

Residents were asked to fill out a ‘report of the day’ and feedback was mostly excellent.  Some comments were:

• What a great event.  It was great to meet the Six Town team on a one to one basis
• .I enjoyed the workshops but would have liked more time in them.
• The best yet!
• Thank you to everyone who attended, to all the staff and partners who helped on the day and to Team Spirit for hosting the classes.

Hope to see you next year!

If you require any further information regarding this event or any other ways of getting involved, please contact the Community Involvement Team on 0161 686 8000.