Shaping the Future of Pennyburn - Riverside

Enter our annual In Bloom garden competition - check the back page!
p.3 Earth Day with Glebe
p.4 Record Major Investment
p.5 The AQ Trust
p.6 Welfare Reform
p.6 New Community Groups
p.7 Awards Season
p.8 Warm Welcome for Carol
p.8 Working Well
p.9 Riverside Update
p.10 Snippets
p.11 Shaping Future of Pennyburn
p.11 Get Involved
p.12 Garden Competition
p.12 Onsite Offshore
Lawthorn’s Louise Wins
Good Neighbour Award
Anne said, “I suffer from ill-health and Louise helps me in a variety
of ways including giving me a hand with housework, laundry,
shopping, maintaining my garden as well as collecting my
prescriptions and helping with my pet. She’s a lovely person and
a good friend – a worthy winner of this award.”
Housing Officer, Donna Miller presented Louise with an engraved
Swarovski pen and gift voucher in April.
Louise said, “I was really surprised to be nominated and win, it’s so
nice. Anne had cancer a few years ago and underwent treatment.
She has been good to me as well. I felt like I was returning the favour.
I just helped her out with things she wasn’t fit to do. I am delighted!”
Congratulations Louise!
Welcome to our Summer
2012 edition of House & Home
Paul Hillard
Managing Director
Behind the scenes we’ve
been busy linking up with
Riverside’s IT systems,
which will save us over
£100,000 a year, allowing
us to create new jobs and
provide more services.
Louise MacGregor of Lawthorn was nominated for
The Joe Smith Good Neighbour Award by Anne
McEvoy. The award marks the good work in our
communities that often goes unrecognised, but
makes a difference to the lives of others.
It’s hard to believe we are already half way
through 2012. It’s been an exciting start to the
year. We’re progressing well with the Pennyburn
Regeneration project and are embarking on our
first development overseas – Lamlash on the
Isle of Arran. We’ve won a couple of awards this
year and have been delighted to hand out a few
too – congratulations to Louise, our Good
Neighbour Award Winner!
I was delighted to introduce Carol Matthews, Riverside’s Chief
Executive to our tenants, community representatives and staff
when she visited in March. Carol could see first-hand how our
realtionship with our communities is stronger than ever. Our
community representatives have a strong voice and are being
given more and more opportunities to influence decision-making.
We have been consulting with them alot, including enhancing our
repairs service. Read about the new service on page 4. Not only
are we enhancing the service, we are investing a record £2.6
million on major repairs in 2012/13!
This year has also seen some big changes in the sector with the
introduction of the first ever Scottish Social Housing Charter and
the ongoing review of the welfare benefits system.
Behind the scenes we’ve been busy linking up with Riverside’s IT
systems, which will save us over £100,000 a year, allowing us to
create new jobs and provide more services.
We’ve also been busy launching a new charity, The AQ Trust. I am
still recovering from the 56 mile long cycle around Arran!
Have a fantastic summer!
Class teacher, Miss Russell
said, “We are very active on
environmental issues at Glebe.
The pupils really enjoyed the
afternoon and we will take
on board the tips and advice
we have learned from Irvine
Housing Association.”
Celebrating Earth
Day With Glebe
Primary School
To raise awareness of ‘green’ issues and celebrate Earth
Day on Sunday 22 April, Gillian Craig, Marketing &
Communications Officer visited Glebe Primary School,
Irvine to tell the primary 5’s all about Earth Day and
what the Association does to protect the planet.
On Earth Day, people all over the world
remember to appreciate nature and learn
new ways to protect the environment and
keep the planet clean. For the children at
Glebe Primary School every day is Earth
Day as the Glebe is an eco school and holds
a silver eco award. The school have an eco
committee with representatives from
classes attending meetings and reporting
back to their class.
Gillian told the pupils about the
Association’s aim to maximise value and
minimise waste, the recycling and energy
saving initiatives carried out by staff,
partnership working with energy advice
agencies and staff involvement in initiatives
such as Cycle To Work Scheme and Healthy
Working Lives. She also covered how the
Association makes its homes energy efficient,
how thermal imaging research was carried
out on properties and the Association’s study
into developing an eco home.
The interactive session finished with top
energy saving tips and a badge and poster
colouring competition. The winners were
Aiden and Corey.
2 House & Home Summer 2012
House & Home Summer 2012 3