Sunday morning and I am blogging - what that says about me I have no idea - sad old tart maybe!
Bill and I had a very good meeting with Natasha Dennis, the acting Resident Involvement Officer at the HSH office. She seemed to be keen to establish a genuine working relationship with the GRRA. We asked her, as our first and to us most important issue, if HSH would agree to re-naming the children's play area for Kay Barnes. Kay did so much for us all before her death, and I have just had an email to say that they have agreed and that if we just tell HSH what we want in the form of a plaque to that effect they will arrange it. We are, as you can imagine, delighted and I am sure that everyone else will be too.
Natasha also told us that there was an amount of £40,000.00 in the form of a grant from that Lottery. There were two phases, the first has been done but there is still the second, which is where this amount is being held. This has been awarded to the Grantham Road Residents Association but the previous Committee had not taken advantage of it for some reason. Time was running out, we only have until tomorrow, Monday 16th November, to produce something on paper to go to the Director for his decision and so wish me luck - I will need it as I have no idea as to the background and will have to just do what I can. £40,000.00 would make a world of difference to the play area and it would be wonderful for the children. So - we have been asked if we can quickly put something together by tomorrow so that we can at least extend the deadline. We really do not want to loose what is for us a great deal of money. I will keep you posted as to how we get on.
Natasha also gave us the "blueprint" package that HSH produce so that we can see what their idea of a well run Association is. This will help us to provide information to them in the best possible format to ease the passage of any requests we may have. We would like to have all the papers passed to us from the previous Committee so that we know about what has been going on and can make sure that where things have been started they are continued. Bill has asked Natasha if she can arrange for this and we will let you know when they arrive. Natasha, in my personal opinion, is an extremely nice person and both Bill and I, and I know the rest of the Committee, are looking forward to working well with her.
Bill did one of his "walkabouts" on Friday afternoon. He has been doing these every month for about three years with Maud Adams, our Housing Officer, and Donna (who manages the cleaners)who attends on most occasions. They found a huge amount of stuff - mattresses etc - on the 16th floor of Pinter House which they had removed there and then as it was a massive fire hazard. If any of you living in the three blocks see stuff on your fire landings can you please let your block representative know about it and we can get it removed. Their names will be going up in the notice boards in your Reception Areas next week.
So - things are moving along - I am going to do the first news letter this coming week so that folk who do not have access to the web are also kept up to date with what their Comittee is up to.
There has been a post on the last blog to say that it would be nice to have some photos so that people know who we are and what we look like. I, being a complete div have no idea how to do that but we have a wonderful chap, who is our Treasurer, who does. Paul is the man who has built this Blog, designed and built the webside and arranged the email address and I bend my knee to him as a miracle worker. We will get some done and then you will be able to see them - poor old you - we are ancient and totally SO not photogenic!!!
I did try to get into this page to have a chat on Thursday but there was a system problem the the site so apologies for the gap.
Take care all of you - Jayne