ACTION

1.

Election of Chair

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

2.

Apologies:

Ms Sue Goldman, Ms Sheila Seabury, Ms Monique Carter.

3.

Minutes of 5^th February - Accuracy

Item 6.2.5 vi) Haggerston West Estate Committee - Pat Phillips stated that Haggerston West had always been due for demolition and not for refurbishment. Second line omit "for refurbishment". Third line change "refurbished" to "demolished and rebuilt". Fourth line change "refurbishment" to "demolition".

Lorna Meade proposed agreement of minutes with above amendments, seconded by Pat Phillips, agreed.

Tom Seabury arrived. Meeting was still inquorate with 8 members present.

4.

Matters Arising from 5^th February:

Item 2.4 Apologies, lack of attendance - The Tenant Support Worker has contacted "a few people", one was Tarja Kanzen - she has "not turned up".

Item 4.2 Newsletter, Distribution - Newsletter still not delivered to Haggerston West, the Tenant Support Worker will do it instead of Bryan Kennedy.

Tenant Support Worker

Item 4.4.2 Haggerston West Estate Committee, "walk around" inspection of estate - The Tenant Support Worker reported that he had arranged an inspection for last Wednesday but Beatrice Beaumont could not attend. The Tenant Support Worker has arranged another inspection for this Wednesday 7^th March at 11-00 am.

Item 4.5.1 Letter from Arthur Ringrose - Copies of Bryan Kennedy’s letter of reply were available at the meeting.

Item 4.8 Service Level Agreement with Haggerston Area Trust - Covered under agenda item 8.

Item 5.1 Letter from Metropolitan Police, Race Awareness - no interest from residents expressed so far.

Item 6.1.1 Canalside, Opposition to Cuts in Refurbishment - Tom Seabury will report back under agenda item 6.

Item 6.2.2 Haggerston West Estate Committee, Empty Flats - Pat Phillips to report back under item 6.

Item 7.2.5 Food Co-op proposals - to be discussed under agenda item 7.

Item 9.2 Next General Meeting on 2^nd April

The Tenant Support Worker has prepared a draft Notice and agenda for the meeting which was circulated to members for comment. The Tenant Support Worker has contacted Robin Hawkes and Harsha Amin and both can attend for questions.

Agreed to move agenda item 3 on Empty flats under item 1 (questions to Harsha Amin about Haggerston West) but stated as a specific item.

Tenant Support Worker

Agreed that the Tenant Support Worker distribute posters for the meeting next week to give 1 months notice and then to distribute leaflets to all properties a week before the meeting.

Tenant Support Worker

5.

Incoming Post Received

Letter from FOHTRA

FOHTRA (Federation of Hackney Tenants and Residents Associations) will hold their final AGM on 12^th March at Morningside Estate Community Hall, Cresset Road, E9. They are proposing to close down the organisation and transfer any assets to HAPTRA (Housing Association Panel of Tenants and Residents Associations). Tom Seabury explained that HAPTRA allowed Borough wide representation of Housing Association residents which mirrors the Tenants Convention set up for Council tenants.

Agreed to support the resolution by FOHTRA to close down the organisation and transfer any assets to HPTRA.

Tom Seabury to attend, the Tenant Support Worker to give Tom Seabury a copy of the letter.

Tenant Support Worker, Tom Seabury

Letter from A21

A21 have replied to the Tenant Support Worker’s letter. A21 have offered to meet with TRA members, the Tenant Support Worker suggested that this offer is refused and that A21 be pressed to make their board meeting open to the public and to make their minutes freely available.

The Tenant Support Worker noted that membership of the A21 board was by invitation only.

The Tenant Support Worker had not stated that A21 were obliged to report back to the TRA, only that it was good practice for organisations to supply minutes of their meetings to the public. The Tenant Support Worker was surprised that the minutes were confidential.

Tom Seabury stated that A21 received £73,000 from CHP. Bryan Kennedy suggested that CHP Board should look into A21’s practices and ask them to hold open meetings and publish their minutes.

Points made by residents:

1. Charities have to make their accounts available for inspection on request.
2. The HAT board meetings were also not open to the public and that there appeared to be no accounts available for last year.
3. All TRA meetings were open to all residents but only committee or sub-committee members could vote. Pam Davey stated that she was not aware of this and said the TRA did not publicise the fact. She was referred to the TRA Newsletters and the minutes on the TRA Notice Board.

Agreed that the Tenant Support Worker write a letter to the CHP Community Board questioning A21’s practices and asking that CHP push them to make minutes available and hold open board meetings.

Tenant Support Worker

The Tenant Support Worker to draft a letter to the Canalside Community Board and show it to Ivy Matkin and Nick Strauss (Canalside resident’s Board members) for approval. Tenant Support worker to draft a letter to the Ascent 21 and get Chairs Action from Brian Kennedy.

6.

Report Back

The Tenant Support Worker had laid out copies of reports, letters and recent minutes of various organisations for anyone who wanted to read them.

Haggerston West

Empty flats - Pat Phillips has written to the Kingsland Neighbourhood Panel stating that residents of Haggerston West estate wish to have the empty flats re-let. She will also ask the Secretary to the panel to send minutes of meetings to the Tenant Support Worker.

Pat Phillips

Estate Inspection - The Tenant Support Worker has arranged another inspection for this Wednesday 7^th March at 11-00 am. Residents are to walk around the estate before the inspection to note items to bring to the attention of Beatrice Beaumont (form the council) at the inspection. Pat Phillips reported that she could not attend the next estate inspection, Pam Davey to attend inspection with Beatrice Beaumont.

Pam Davey

CHP

Community Board (Ivy Matkin)

Ivy Matkin has asked Robin Hawkes for a written resume of what happened at the last meeting but has not received it to date.

It was resolved that Orme House will get aluminium windows and that the sound insulation is "looked into further". Whitmore Estate phase 1 is starting. Bryant Court is to get uPVC windows as CHP say they are "best suited to the purpose". CHP Board Members have asked for minutes of the meeting to be distributed earlier than "the day before the meeting".

CHP Board Members have asked for minutes of the meeting to be distributed earlier than "the day before the meeting".

The Tenant Support Worker pointed out that item 3.5 in "Election of Representatives to the Community Board" (report by Robin Hawkes to the Board) suggested that the Tenant Support Worker may be asked to do the work for the elections.

Agreed that the Tenant Support Worker to state to CHP that he would be willing to do the work and to negotiate the additional resources needed from CHP in consultation with CHP Board member/Resident Representatives. The Tenant Support Worker to ask Nick Strauss if he will be lead member on this.

Tenant Support Worker

Tom Seabury reminded residents that major works were imminent on Whitmore Estate, including the LEB site. The works had been due to start in January. There will be major disruption to residents.

Delegation to CHP Board (Tom Seabury)

7-8 residents attended the last CHP Board meeting to oppose the cuts in standards of refurbishment. They put the case as they saw it. Tom Seabury made the following points:

1. The board argued that they needed to "balance the budget" but Tom Seabury pointed out that they did not have an up to date business plan.

Pam Davey stated that the report was Tom Seabury’s opinion and questioned whether the Haggerston West residents should sit through this item. Pam Davey stated that she and others might have their "judgement clouded" when considering the "short list" of future landlords which included Canalside.

Lorna Meade stated that what they were hearing was an illustration that what was promised was not always delivered. The Tenant Support Worker stated that there were 2 lessons to be learned: Undertakings given before a ballot can be broken; CHP did not use the "balancing the budget" arguments before the transfer. Tenants reps on the CHP Board should not accept this argument.

Ivy Matkin stated that Tenant Board members did not vote for the cuts in the standards. She will still press for a "workable" sound insulation which is as good as possible and wants concrete proposals from CHP staff.

Pam Davey asked if residents had taken part in planning the estate refurbishment prior to take-over. Tom Seabury stated that Ivy Matkin and others had sat on the design group and agreed the specifications.

Tom Seabury - the reduced cost option of uPVC windows will need new planning permission which given the state of the council at the moment will produce unknown further delay. This was not mentioned at the board meeting.

Tom Seabury asked that residents be allowed to produce campaign leaflets between TRA committee meetings. Bryan Kennedy stated that this had been done before on Chairs Action but it would be better if others were involved.

Agreed that a sub-committee be set up consisting of Tom Seabury, Monique Carter, Ivy Matkin and Paul Sprenger. Sub-committee to do leafleting and campaigning against the cuts to the sound insulation.

Compensation for Delays

Pam Davey asked about compensation for a CHP tenant who had been moved out of their flat on Haggertson East. They had originally been told that they would be in temporary accommodation for 6 months and had been offered £500 (roughly) for statutory compensation. They have now been out for "18 months" (Some members felt it could not have been more than a year). Would the tenant get any further compensation? She now felt she would have to re-decorate as she was staying there much longer than originally planned. Ivy Matkin suggested that the matter be brought to the next EDMC meeting on 19^th March. Ivy Matkin can get details from Pam Davey.

Ivy Matkin, Pam Davey

7

Projects

IT Project

Report from March 1^st meeting was available. Not discussed.

Food Co-op

Minutes from the March 1^st meeting were circulated to members. Gillian Excell gave a report on the decisions that had been made at the meeting.

Monique Carter felt that she should give the reasons for her proposal:

Ivy Matkin stated that there had been no support from HAWK TRA members once the food co-op had been set up. The co-op was "HAWK TRA’s baby". Co-op volunteers had also been told that there would be an "umbrella organisation" for the co-op. In practice the food co-op had been using its resources to provide an umbrella to other groups.

Pam Davey - members who had paid £2 should have been informed by letter of the closure of the stall. Some people were still coming on Thursdays. The volunteers from the stall still came to the Community Centre every Thursday.

Ivy Matkin - Nick Strauss had told her that HAWK TRA had some money available that could be used for the stall. Robin Hawkes (CHP) had said that CHP could help with publicity and funding initial purchase of produce.

Bryan Kennedy stated that there had been lots of "free work" done for the TRA but not for the co-op.

The Tenant Support Worker proposed that the Haggerston stall be considered as a separate item from the food co-op.

Agreed that HAWK TRA:

7.2.7a

7.2.7b

Go to A21 with a request that they provide management support for the community in Haggerston to run the stall and let the CHP Board know of the request.

Ask the CHP Board to pursue the matter with A21 if the request for management support is refused.

Pat Phillips, Pam Davey, Tenant Support Worker

Agreed to the recommendations put forward by the food co-op sub-committee:

Not to spend £5000 for purchase of retail software package and to inform Urban that the total capital expenditure of the co-op be reduced from £20,000 to £15,000.

That the Bookkeeper be given 5 hours extra payment to go through the wages records and bring the Tax and PAYE payments up to date.

Bookkeeper

That the Bookkeeper be given 8 hours out of food co-op budget to sort out the food co-op accounts for the financial year end and that Simon Lukes support her.

Bookkeeper. Simon Lukes

The food co-op becomes independent and registers as a Friendly Society.

Give Michelle up to 21 hours to sort out returns to funders due to this financial year and that she be given until 14^th March to bring any remaining paperwork up to date and return it to the TRA offices.

8.

Service Level Agreement (SLA) with Haggerston Area Trust (HAT)

Letter from Mike Casajuana was noted but not discussed due to lack of time. Gillian Excell and Lorna Meade had not met again since the last meeting. Gillian Excell stated that she was happy to delegate the negotiations with the trust to someone else as she had little spare time due to pressures of work.

Agreed to delegate Bryan Kennedy to discuss the letter with Mike Casajuana.

Bryan Kennedy

9.

Any other Business

Monique Carter has offered to act as Chair for the General Meeting on Monday April 2^nd.

Agreed that Monique Carter Chair the General Meeting.