The Council have posted notice of their intention to introduce one of these in order to prevent obstructive parking. Some residents have received the document below which gives details of the intended change and also includes a plan to show the exact location.
The formal objection period began on the 11th August and ends on the 31st. All comments and objections need to be with the Council by midnight on the 1st September 2017.
The time for the coach to depart to the fabulous Milestones Living History Museum. It leaves the Meriden at 10:00 on Wednesday morning and there are a few places left – so get yours reserved now! Miss it, miss out!
It’s now less than a week until the MRA’s excursion. The Museum is all under cover, so the weather won’t spoil your day. More details and booking arrangements here. But hurry, there are only 11 places left!
The weather this summer has been less than fantastic, hasn’t it? The MRA have a coach trip organised to visit Milestones on the 23rd. Full details here – as of today, 12th August, there are only 11 places left. See here for further information and to secure your places – it’s one event the weather can’t ruin!
Are you a member of WCHT? Read on….
Did you know of the existence of the Gateway Membership Team? Here’s what they do:
Our Gateway
A message from your Gateway Membership Team
“We have been elected by you, our fellow residents, to act as your voice at Watford Community Housing Trust, pass on your views and work alongside staff and residents to ensure the Trust’s services benefit our communities.
We’d really like to hear from you to help us act effectively on your behalf. If there is an issue you need us to look into for you or advise you on, feel free to contact us on gmt@wcht.org.uk. We’d also like to hear your thoughts on how you feel the daily processes at the Trust can be improved so please let us know so that we can help the Trust with this. We are not able to look into individual complaints so please raise those with the Trust by emailing feedback@wcht.org.uk or by calling the Trust on 0800 218 2247.
We look forward to working with you.”
The Trust has an elected Gateway Membership Team, made up of nine tenants and residents (plus up to three co-optees), to ensure that our communities have a strong voice within the Trust and direct access to our Board of Management.
The next AGM takes place on 11 September 2017 and one of the items on the agenda will be as follows:
Proposed adoption of NHF Model Rules
At our Annual General Meeting on 11th September 2017 members will be invited to vote on the adoption of the NHF Model Rules, in place of the existing Rules governing how we are run.
The full document on the rule changes can be found here, and the draft rulebook can be downloaded here. A look inside the National Housing Federation’s model about tenant boards shows us this:
Membership
2.5 At the moment, Watford Community Housing invites all tenants to become
members of the organisation. Members may attend general meetings, vote on
decisions to be made at general meetings (for example, changes to its Rules) and
elect representatives to the Gateway Committee. This is called the ‘Community
Gateway Model’.2.6 We understand that Watford Community Housing wishes to engage with its
residents in the most effective way possible. Many tenants who are members
choose not to exercise their membership rights by not attending or voting at
general meetings. The table below sets out the number of members with
attendance figures for the last 5 years:
2.7 If the new Rules are approved by the members, Watford Community Housing will
therefore get in touch with all members to ask them to confirm that they still wish
to be a member.2.8 If a member does not reply to the notice within 28 days they will no longer be a
member. In addition, if a member fails to attend (in person or by proxy) two
consecutive general meetings they will also cease to be a member. This will not
affect their status as a tenant of Watford Community Housing or the rights that
they have as a tenant. This will ensure that only tenants who wish to be engaged as
members of Watford Community Housing continue to do so, in line with the
ethos of the community gateway model. It will also increase the influence of those
engaged tenants, because they will be part of a smaller body of members.2.9 Watford Community Housing will also adopt a policy for the admission of new
members, so that new tenants will only be offered membership if they wish to be
actively engaged with the organisation (rather than automatically being offered
membership as they are now).2.10 Watford Community Housing currently has an ‘associate member’ category of
membership (with no voting rights), which includes community stakeholders. The
proposed new Rules remove this category of membership, and we understand that
Watford Community Housing will continue to engage with associate members and
the wider community through its Communities Strategy (see above).2.11 Watford Community Housing’s current Rules set out the minimum number of
members that must be present at a general meeting for any vote at the meeting to
be valid (called a ‘quorum’). At the moment this is:• 25 members if Watford Community Housing has fewer than 1000 members in
total; or• 50 members if Watford Community Housing has more than 1000 members.
2.12 To reflect the new membership structure (and the 2015 Model Rules) the
proposed new Rules change the way in which the quorum is calculated, so that at
least one tenth of members must be present at a meeting, subject to a maximum of
25 members and a minimum of 5 members. This will help Watford Community
Housing to achieve flexible decision-making.
You may be interested to know that the board tried to push this through last year, but the GMT felt that there had not been enough notice or consultation with the members and the board were forced to withdraw the proposal.
As someone entitled to be a member of the Trust, join up (if you haven’t already) and go along to the AGM on the 11th of September or give your proxy vote to someone who is going if you cannot attend. This isn’t about national or local politics; it’s about where you live.
A new train operator, West Midlands Trains Ltd. will take over the operation of the London Midland services from December. Full story here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-40885118
We’ve added more dates to our events diary, made it easier to contact us and included more information about the committee.
Further to the original posting, we’ve been made aware that the Trust sent a general events e-mail at approximately 16:30 this afternoon which included that below. We’ve no idea how people who are not using e-mail are being made aware of this. Here’s the relevant extract from the mail-out.
Whilst we applaud the idea, we are concerned that only a week after the Trust came in for some strong criticism at the MRA Open Meeting over the extremely short notice about work to the domestic hot water supply in Abbey View, they have left it until close of business on Monday to notify residents of this Q&A session which takes place three days later.
This was tweeted out by the Trust at 5pm today. No further information seems to be available other than the e-mail address shown. We will try and find out more, so please keep watching for further details.
Following last night’s consultation at the Trust offices in connection with the Affinity Water metering situation, Please see some important information.
There were a lot of questions about how the metering in the high rise blocks on the Meriden would be carried out – it would appear there is more work for the Trust to do in this regard as when asked, Greg Whelan, Financial Controller for the WCHT said he was uncertain how this could be achieved. He undertook to contact Affinity to discuss it further and revert, but also advised us that he was going on annual leave and may not be able to get back to us for a week or so.
However, after looking at the Affinity website it appears that if the Trust do decide to stop being the middleman and all residents have to sort their own bills out, those residents living in flats, particularly the high-rise blocks, still will not have access to the low income fixed tariff, which is one of the Trust’s selling points for handing control back to Affinity.
If this does turn out to be the case, all residents who reside in Abbey View and Munden View and possibly the low rise blocks as well, must make sure our voices are heard in this consultation process since it would seem very unfair for everyone else to benefit financially if the high rise and low rise tenants are unable to.
Karen Bell
Resident of Abbey View and MRA Committee Member
