ACTION

Election of Chair

Bryan Kennedy chaired the meeting in accordance with the decision made under item 5a) at the October meeting.

Apologies:

Nusret Sen (Tenant Support Worker), Sheila Seabury, Gillian Excell (will be late) and George Birch.

Minutes of 6/10/2000 - Accuracy:

Item 6a i. 4th paragraph - Report back from Canalside Community Board "the LEB sub-station" should read "Stringer House".

Proposed by Paul Sprenger that minutes were a correct record with the above amendment. Seconded by Monique Carter, Agreed.

Matters Arising:

None.

Michelle Asbury requested that the Food Co-op Project report be taken next as she had another meeting to attend.

Projects

Food Co-op Project (Food Project Manager, verbal report)

7.1 i)Michelle Asbury circulated accounts and budget for the year and stated that the project was operating within budget.

7.1 ii)There were 2 main areas of capital underspend: One was software for stock control and customer tracking (which Simon Lukes was sorting out) due to be purchased by the end of the month. The other outstanding item was work to the office which included decorating and fitting out of the storage space which would be done once the co-op had received its next Urban funding payment. The Urban monitoring returns and visits had fallen behind by 3 months. Revised figures had now been agreed by the Urban monitoring officer and were being re-submitted.

7.1 iii)The co-op held elections last month and it has a new Chair, Vice Chair and Treasurer, it is hoped that a Secretary can be elected this month. Any nominations would be welcome, meeting is on this Wednesday 6th December.

7.1 iv)Simon Lukes is setting up the new stall in Wenlock Barn on a trial basis for the Shoreditch New Deal Trust. SNDT were only willing to fund the co-op next year if it expanded its operations to other areas outside Haggerston.

7.1 v)Michelle Asbury will be resigning on 31st January, originally it was 31st December but she will stay on and try and get revenue funding for a full time post next year as the additional hours are needed to do the work. Michelle Asbury said that Jeanette White (food co-op member) did not have enough time to continue as her line manager and Nick Strauss had reluctantly volunteered, however it would be much more preferable that someone from the TRA committee did this job. Michelle Asbury felt there should be someone from the TRA Committee on the food co-op committee to report back.

7.1 vi)In answer to residents questions: If members wanted to change the co-ops meeting day from the 1st Wednesday of the month this would need to be agreed with the IT project. The food co-op presently shares the crèche with IT project sub-Committee and also the bookkeeper could report to both meetings on the same night.

7.1 vii)Michelle Asbury is resigning because she cannot carry out all the tasks in the hours given and there would be a difficulty in splitting the current duties. Brian Kennedy offered to look into the food co-op budget to see if Michelle Asbury could keep the job. Michelle Asbury stated that she could not take on additional hours due to child care, if the job was split in the future then it would need a lot of liaison time, the project will not become self sustaining within the next year and really needs a full time worker.

7.1 viii)There is a lot of beauracracy involved including servicing committees but most is due to funders requirements. Paperwork forms 60% of hours worked. Val Hughes can only give limited support outside bookkeeping, she is allocated 3 hours per week for the food coop. Val Hughes stated that people need training on funding applications. Mike Casajuana stated that funders requirements on paperwork are unlikely to change in the foreseeable future.

7.1 ix)Members discussed whether the food co-op had "reached people". There was too little awareness of the door to door delivery scheme. Some members felt there was a lot of awareness of the stall but it needed to be open more often, however there were too few volunteers to do this. Michelle Asbury stated that the mobile shop had been looked into and there were 3 problems: insurance costs; trading standards would require it to be licensed; health and safety would need to be addressed.

7.1 x)Ivy Matkin advised that some elderly people buy small quantities of fruit and vegetables each time they shop because some produce goes off after a few days and they felt that it was not worth using the weekly deliveries. Michelle Asbury confirmed that people could order as little as they liked on the box scheme but that more frequent deliveries would require additional staff time to go to the wholesalers etc.

Michelle Asbury left the meeting

IT Project

No report

Post Received

5.1A summary of incoming post was circulated at the meeting. There were no queries from members.

Report Back

Canalside

6.1 i)Community Board (Ivy Matkin, verbal report)

The board voted against the proposal not to build on the LEB sub-station site at Whitmore Estate. Architects have been asked to re-design the scheme.

6.1 ii)Estate Development and Management Committee (EDMC)

Ivy Matkin stated that the minutes were self explanatory.

6.1 iii)Design Group (Ivy Matkin, Verbal Report)

The group wants the proposed doors and windows to be satisfactory to everyone. They have chosen the paving slabs. Canalside will put door plates on internal doors where the residents decide they want to keep their existing doors. Some members joked about the topic under discussion and felt that bigger items were at issue. Ivy Matkin stated that she was endeavouring to report back to the committee and these were the items that had been discussed. She felt that minutes of the design group should have been made available.

6.1 iv)Some residents felt that the quality of doors, windows and sound proofing "is up for grabs again" and that promises of quality are being reneged on. The design group had spent time on the original proposals, now they have "the rug pulled out from underneath". Ivy Matkin felt that the doors proposed now were still an improvement on what had been installed in garden place as they are more secure. Also, she is trying to ensure that the windows used are simple to operate as some types have complicated mechanisms.

6.1 v)Residents have now been told by Canalside that sound proofing is not going to be done. There was a question on whether the offer document was binding. Some felt that Canalside are "moving the goalposts, cutting costs, and breaking promises: They are talking about consultation but not doing it". The whole plans were originally about security - defensible spaces, secure front doors that didn’t need metal grills over them, etc., suddenly they won’t say how secure the proposed doors are. Some committee members believed that refurbished properties should have sound proofing to same levels as new build properties - Sue Goldman to check up.

6.1 vi)Ivy Matkin wanted to stress that she did not "hold a brief to represent Canalside", she didn’t know what their intentions were and could only deal with what they brought up at meetings. She did not like being laughed at when she reported what had been discussed.

6.1 vii)Tom Seabury asked if there was going to be another open day. Ivy Matkin said there probably would be but few people usually attended. She felt that if residents didn’t like the plans then they should make their views known. Tom Seabury reported that Nick Strauss and some other tenants are to lobby the Board meeting on the changes to the proposed refurbishment. Nick Strauss and some other tenants are to lobby the Board Meeting. They felt that a vote by 8 out of 13 people did not represent the residents. There had been much wider consultation on the original proposals before the ballot and there had been an "80%" vote at the ballot.

6.1 viii)Tom Seabury proposed a Motion: "Canalside must keep to its original pr- transfer promises and maintain the standards of refurbishment that residents were led to believe they would get when they voted in the ballot for transfer". Sue Goldman seconded. Motion agreed.

6.1 xi)Agreed that the TRA should do a newsletter to residents about the proposed cuts to the standards of refurbishment. Canalside had already sent out a newsletter but the committee felt that the TRA should give the residents’ own view of what has happened.

Tenant Support Worker

6.1 x)The committee understood that Canalside wanted to take transfer of Haggerston West from the council. The Haggerston West residents who were present stated that they were not impressed with Canalside’s performance and definitely wanted to have alternative landlords to choose from.

Haggerston West

6.2 i)Estate Development and Management Committee (EDMC)

Lorna Meade gave a verbal report. The last EDMC meeting had been cancelled. No work had been done by the council on the tender brief as consultants had been laid off as part of the emergency spending curbs. Harsha Amin has got an exemption from the "Exemptions Committee" to allow the consultants to restart the work. The documents were now going to the council’s legal department and the consultants were again working on the proposals.

6.2 ii)Estate Committee

Sue Goldman asked if the rubbish collections were working again on Haggerston West, residents stated there had been 2 collections last week but there were still problems with blocked drains and squatters. Sue Goldman stated that the recent loss of services had not been due to union action but because the council had laid off staff who were on temporary contracts. She asked if the TRA would support "non-violent and non-disruptive" action by the unions. Members stated they would consider supporting such action but would need to know what it was first.

6.2 iii)Pam Davey and Pat Phillps asked if the Tenant Support Worker could investigate getting a grant for the children’s’ play area in Haggerston West. They stated that the environmental budget had already been used for the Tenant Support Worker’s wages under a previous agreement.

Tenant Support Worker

6.2 iv)A discussion took place on actions the council should be doing on the estate. Agreed that the TRA write to the Secretary of the Estate Committee stating residents concerns: The drains need to be unblocked and the squatted and empty flats have not been re-let to homeless families on Short Term Leases as originally promised.

Tenant Support Worker

6.2 v)Tenant Support Worker to ask for another walk about inspection of the estate. The council claimed they had done one with Tenant Support Worker but when Mike Casajuana asked Tenant Support Worker about this he had not been able to confirm. Normally the council officers who do the walk about are Ismail Atilola and Beatrice Bellot .

Tenant Support Worker

Other

6.3 i)Kingsland Community Forum (Ivy Matkin, verbal report)

There has been no recent meeting to report back on. The forum has approved 4 or 5 grants one of which is to keep the community centre running.

AOB

January Meeting

Agreed to hold the next TRA meeting on 8th of January as the first Monday of the month would be New Year’s Day.

Letter from A Ringrose to the TRA secretary

8.2 i)The letter was read out by Brian Kennedy. The letter stated that the TRA had voted to oppose LEB sub station site development but two members of its committee had voted in favour at a Canalside EDMC meeting and one of them had voted in favour at a Canalside Board meeting. The letter asked for the TRA’s position with regard to these members and asked whether they should remain on the TRA committee.

8.2 ii)Ivy Matkin stated that she objected to having her name in the letter as one of the people concerned. She always voted as an individual on the facts as presented to her at meetings. Tom Seabury felt that residents in these circumstances were put in a "complex and invidious position" but that it was a good thing to have residents who were on both the board and the TRA.

8.2 iii)The committee’s consensus was that residents were elected to the board as individuals and not as delegates from the TRA and as such were not mandated to vote in a specific way.

8.2 iv)Brian Kennedy agreed to copy the letter for other committee members. Ivy Matkin stated that she would not be resigning from any committees that she was a member of.

Brian Kennedy

8.3Workers Attendance of TRA Meetings

Members asked for clarification on why Val Hughes had attended the whole meeting. Agreed to check on when workers were required to attend and whether it was necessary for the bookkeeper to stay throughout the meeting.

Val Hughes