The Newsletter from Chislehurst & Sidcup Housing Association • www.csha.org.uk Issue 52 • Christmas 2017

All housing associations review their rents, service charges andsupport charges every April, at the start of the new financial year. Asthe cost of services increase, this will be reflected in your service andsupport charges.

Starting in April 2016, the Government instructed all associations tocut rents by 1 per cent a year for four years. This means that onlyservice and support charges will increase, while the core rent willreduce by 1 per cent a year until 2020.

From 2020 onwards, associations can increase their core rent, in linewith regulations. You will receive a formal notification of the newcharges in February 2018.

CSHA will inform the Council of the new charges for all tenants whohave Housing Benefit paid directly to us.

Tenants responsible for their own rent or who have their HousingBenefit paid to them should pay the new charges stated in thenotification letter.

Welcometo Rose

Following arecent electionto appoint anew TenantPanelRepresentativeat UrsulaLodges, we arepleased towelcome Rose Dowley to the Panel.

Bev Cox has resigned as the

Representative for Lingwood andwe would like to acknowledge andthank her for all her input over thelast year.

New reps needed forEvelyn Rogers andLingwoodWe currently have a vacancy for aTenant Panel Rep at Evelyn RogersCourt and also at Lingwood andwould like to invite tenants at bothschemes to nominate eitherthemselves or a fellow tenant.

TENANT PANEL NEWS

April 2018Rent Reviews

Merry Christmas to

all from Chislehurst

& Sidcup Housing

Association

Good NeighbourAwards 2017

Every year we ask all tenants at oursheltered schemes to nominatefellow tenants for our GoodNeighbour Awards. There isusually one winner at each scheme;however this year there weremultiple winners at both EvelynRogers Court and BlackmoreHouse. CSHA are pleased toannounce the winners as follows:

Blackmore House – RubyGunning, Jackie Elliot, ChristianAmaechi

Evelyn Rogers Court – MarianneBaccarini, Alan Humberstone, PatWhymark and James Chuter

Bushell Way – Pat and TerryRainsford

Ursula Lodges – Tina Jones

Bertha Hollamby Court– Dave Parr

Lingwood – Tina Capelli

Thank you and well done to all thewinners and we hope you enjoyspending your M&S vouchers.

Darwin £10notes to go after

1 March 2018Following the successful launch ofthe new Jane Austen £10 note on 14September 2017, the Bank ofEngland will withdraw the paper £10note featuring Charles Darwin aftermidnight on Thursday 1 March. Youcan continue to use the notes asnormal up till then although mostpaper £10 notes will be automaticallyremoved from circulation.

After 1 March 2018, it will still bepossible for Charles Darwin notes tobe exchanged at the Bank of England.

Christmas & NewYear office hours

There will be reduced staff over theChristmas period. If your ShelteredHousing Manager is off and youwish to speak to someone, please callHead Office on 020 8467 9146.

If your Manager usually calls youevery day but they are away overChristmas, another Manager or yourtelecare service will call you instead.If you plan to be away overChristmas, please advise yourManager in advance. Please note:there will be no daily calls onweekends or Bank Holidays.

Friday 22 DecemberNormal opening hours

Monday 25 December – ClosedTuesday 26 December – Closed

Wednesday 27 DecemberNormal opening hours

Thursday 28 DecemberNormal opening hours

Friday 29 DecemberNormal opening hours

Monday 1 January – ClosedTuesday 2 JanuaryNormal opening hours

Lingwood tenants take cover during

museum visit

Lingwood tenants took a journey back in time during a recent trip to theImperial War Museum – including a visit to a replica air raid shelter.Everyone felt quite at home in the shelter and didn’t want to come outat all! Of course, most tenants are far too young to remember the SecondWorld War but enjoyed learning about the life-changing experiencethat their older siblings and parents would have lived through.

The scheme’s winning streak continues at Crayford Dogs where morefree entry tickets were won, so another trip is planned in the new year.

Afternoon Tea at

Bertha Hollamby Court

Four ‘waitresses’ made a specialvisit to Bertha Hollamby Courtrecently to serve the ladies andgents who live there with theperfect afternoon tea – completewith bone china cups and saucers,homemade cakes and scones withjam and cream. All was expertlyserved by the aforesaid waitresses,although tenants were extremelydoubtful of the one in blue, whocalled ‘herself ’ Davina! GlennMiller played in the background,with black and white photographsfrom days gone by spread across thetables. Not sure who had most fun,the guests or the waitresses, but itwas certainly a most enjoyableafternoon.

• Bertha Hollamby Court • Blackmore House• Bushell Way • Evelyn Rogers Court• Lingwood • Ursula Lodges

Evelyn Rogers are hosting a coach trip to see this year’sChristmas lights in Oxford Street. Tenants from all schemeswere invited to join them to see the lights on Oxford Street,visit Harrods and enjoy a fish ‘n’ chip supper. Some tenantssay they haven’t seen the lights for many years and are reallylooking forward to the trip.

All aboard the

Evelyn Rogers

Christmas

lights coach

Bring and Buy at Bushell Way

Bushell Way held avery successful Bringand Buy sale inNovember, withmany tenants makingkind donations andpopping in to grabtea and cake and lookfor a bargain. Thegrand total at the endof the day was over£150, so thank you toall who came along.

Please keep your eyespeeled for the nextevent, to whicheveryone is welcome.All the money raisedgoes towards socialfunds, which returnto Bushell Way tenants in the form of discounted events ortravel to and from outings, or items for the veg garden.

Proceeds on this occasion helped towards our ChristmasParty held on Saturday 9 December, where entertainmentfrom the Singing Fireman was enjoyed by all.

Ursula Lodges’ HalloweenParty was a big success.All the ghosts, witches,ghouls and Draculaseemed keen to tuckinto an other-worldlymenu of stewedsteak, mashedpotatoes and peas,followed by applecrumble and custard.

Later in the evening theentertainmentcomprised a DJ playingsome eerie music tomake them all feel athome. After dancingthe night away and

fuelled by a fewbevvies, everyone

crept home and crawled back to their beds.

Blackmore House’s

birthday fun at Buddha’s

kitchen

Some tenants enjoyed a slap up lunch atBuddha’s Kitchen in Bromley to celebrateMr Attah Kojo Poku’s 80th birthday on24 November.

Attah had a great time and celebrated witha couple of drinks, returning home a veryhappy man!

Happy Birthday Attah.

Eerie goings on

at Ursula Lodges

News from around the schemes

If you have any difficulty reading this newsletter and would like it in larger print or a different language, please let us know.

The CSHA Board met for itsquarterly meeting in November,where it addressed these items:

Fire safety Fire safety stays high on theBoard’s agenda. BoardMembers were updated on thefollow-up actions theAssociation have taken tominimise the risk of fire at allschemes, which have beenhighlighted in Scheme FireRisk Assessments.

Policy reviewsThe Board was presented withreviews of our Fire Safety Policyand Procedure, ProfessionalBoundaries Policy, Equality andDiversity Policy and SupportPlan Policy and Procedure.

FinancesThe Board heard that theCSHA’s finances are in ahealthy position and operatingwith a surplus which is recycledback into the business. We arecurrently working ondelivering a new kitchen andbathroom programme andSheltered Housing Managerswill make recommendations fornext year’s programme, basedon the age of kitchens andbathrooms in their schemes.

A big thank-you to everyone whotook part in our ‘Values’ sessionduring tea and chat in Septemberand October. Discussions at allthe schemes were very lively withsome frank feedback fromtenants on areas where CSHAstaff can improve their ways ofworking with you.

On 2 November werecommended to our Board forCSHA to keep the current valuesas most of you felt they are wide-ranging enough to cover theattitudes and behaviours you

would expect from staff and fromeach other.

Our values are:� Respect � Understanding� Tolerance � Equality � Privacy� Integrity

Remember, if you feel that staffor fellow tenants are not livingup to these values, you have theright to challenge. You can raiseany concerns with our HousingServices Manager.

A breakdown of the results isshown in the table:

Scheme No. ofattendees Comments

Bertha Hollamby 10 Keep the current values but combine respect andintegrity as one value = 10Add ‘competence’ as a new value = 1

Blackmore 6 Keep the current values = 6Tenants also expressed that tenants lived the valuesas well as CSHA staff = 6

Evelyn Rogers 3 Keep the current values = 3

Lingwood 7 Keep the current values = 7More needs to be done to achieve current values e.g.better communication from Head Office regardingdecisions that affect tenants = 7

Bushell Way 12 Keep the current values = 12Add inclusion = 1

Ursula Lodges 12 Keep the current values = 12Head Office needs to listen to tenants = 1

TENANTS GIVE THEIRVIEWS ON OUR VALUES

We have recently seen an increase in contractor’s timebeing wasted due to missed appointments or beingwrongly called out for emergency repairs. Theseproblems have been largely due to tenants beingunavailable or misreporting repairs.

Please be aware that if you miss a pre-arrangedappointment or report a repair which is yourresponsibility, rather than the CSHA’s, you may be

recharged. This could include faulty or wrongly wiredappliances which have caused the electrics to trip,inappropriate materials being flushed down the toiletor sinks causing a blockage, or fire activations due toburnt food.

Contractors are within their rights to invoice forwasted time and the Association will recharge thetenant any costs incurred.

CONTRACTOR CALL OUTSMAKE SURE YOU MEET APPOINTMENTS AND MAKE THE RIGHT CALL!

Boardupdate