31st July 2009

Two new tenant Board members

 

One of the region’s largest housing associations has welcomed two new tenant members to its governing board.

Paul Boast, 50, lives in a community house which is a satellite of the Dale Street mental health supported housing project in Sneinton, Nottingham, where he receives support from NCHA’s Housing with Care and Support department.

Paul has helped plan and run activities for managers’ strategy days as well as helping to organise events for service users. He has been fully trained in Quality Assurance and staff recruitment and has shortlisted and interviewed both support workers and manager for the Housing with Care and Support department. Paul was also instrumental in setting up a peer-to-peer advocacy scheme across NCHA’s four mental health supported housing projects.

Colin Stratton-Baldwin, 60, is a general needs tenant who has lived at Collingham near Newark since 2006 with his wife Angela. As an active member of both the Technical Services Customer Advisory Panel and the Lettings and Estate Advisory Panel, Colin is involved in regular meetings where tenant groups help and advise NCHA on how to improve their services.

Colin is also Secretary of the Tenants & Residents Consortium, which is an independent body of NCHA tenants who work in partnership with NCHA to improve services to tenants and help support tenant and service-user projects. The TRC are currently planning and organising the NCHA Tenant Conference which will take place at the Walker Stadium in October.

The addition of Paul and Colin to sit alongside fellow tenant Graham Carvell, means that tenants now occupy 25% of the NCHA board.