Straight from the horses mouth …resident reporters on the loose at the Residents conference
Posted on November 20, 2013
Tracey Kember and Samir Araffa
Blog Post by Tracey Kember – Erith resident
Orbit South’s 2nd Involved Resident’s Conference – Saturday 2nd November 2013
Whilst residents and staff were registering, I as one of Orbits’ Community Reporters and soon to be Chief Editor of the Residents Rag, got to work straight away interviewing fellow Erith Park core group member Pierre De La Milliere.
He was asked what the core group was. He said we are a small group of people that take care of and discuss the setting up of the regeneration of the new Erith Park formally known as Larner Road. He said he was proud to be a member for the past year.
A welcome introduction was led by Orbit South’s Customer Involvement Advisor, Lisa Cornish in which a film from last year’s conference was shown. Lisa then handed over to Jon Kanareck, Director of Operations to explain the aim of building communities and after that everyone went into their chosen workshops.
During the coffee break my reporter partner Samir and myself shot a video and interviewed people around the conference.
No-one was safe not even Vivien Knibbs (Executive Director of Orbit Living) or Lyn Toogood (Neighbourhood Manager). The other fellow reporters were interviewing too, splitting into groups of 2 which we found easier rather than going round on your own, so we took it in turns to ask questions.
Jane Phillips (Service Improvement Manager of Orbit Heart of England) has been with Orbit for 4 and a half years, working her way up from various roles and she says its good to share experiences.
Phil Tudor Orbit Living’s Head of Service improvement has been in Orbit 10 years, his job is to encourage customers to engage with Orbit to improve the ways things are run, find out what they do well and what they need to improve on. He went on to say he had a great team of Lisa Cornish and Tom Gaskin.
Adam Reid Maintenance Manager of East Kent and Sussex have partnered with MITIE for the past 18 months working to improve services. The aim is for quick repairs and improvements to all services making sure residents are satisfied and in the last 2 to 3 months more slots have been open for more appointments.
Lyn Toogood is the Neighbourhood Manager for Bexley, at 17 years on the job she is one of the longest serving staff at the Bexley office in West Street. Erith. She runs a large Neighbourhoods Team dealing with tenancies and giving residents the support they need. I went on to ask about Erith Parks regeneration project, Lyn said it was brilliant and exciting and loves the dell being transformed from a dumping ground into a wildlife area as Lyn used to be a Neighbourhood Officer there.
Chris Carey is Erith Parks Regeneration Officer who works for Project Manager Caroline Field. She said the project is going really well and the dell which should be completed by December 2013 will be one of the first of Erith’s Parks projects completed. Chris said its nice to have some use of it rather than people using it as a dumping ground. There are 343 new homes under construction with first completion due in late 2014 and the first 169 affordable homes will be ready by March 2013.
Tom Gaskin (Service Improvement Manager for Orbit East and South) says Orbit wants to develop employment skills. There are lots of different ways people can get involved and its his job to inspire this, he wants to put stuff online so people can take part in their own home. He loves meeting residents, staff and contractors and is looking forward to the award ceremony at the end.
Glyn Kyle is a Board Member, its his job to ensure the managers of the various services keep there promises. He likes the direction Orbit is going and his main goal is to make things better for everyone.
The award ceremony - this is the bit everyone loves its the chance to see what people do to makes things matter in their communities. It began with a speech by Orbit Living’s Executive Director Vivien Knibbs.
The award winners were as follows:-
Resident of the Year – Marlene Huettinger
Resident Group of the Year - Erith Park Resident Core Group
Resident Hidden Hero – Kathleen Hearn
Staff Member of the Year - Lisa Cornish
Team of the Year - Erith Park Regeneration Team
Orbit Hidden Hero - Kim Snell
Val Walsh award -Tina Peters
All award winners
To end with, Samir and I managed to grab a brief moment with Vivien Knibbs, whom said she likes to see people getting involved and wants to know how services are working and is passionate about Orbit. She has been in housing for 30 years her goal is to deliver safe secure and affordable homes and is constantly striving to do things better.
Our final interviews of the day were purely for the film cameras, so we didn’t take notes or record it, this was left to the professional film crew who wanted to see the community reporters at their best and in action! We interviewed Tom Gaskin, Phil Tudor and Lisa Cornish the organiser of the event.
I hope we did Tom and Lisa proud with our reporting.
Members of Erith Park Residents Core Group with Board Member Kathy Strong and Executive Director Vivien Knibbs