Setting up a Tenants' and Residents' Association
RIGHTS
TOP TIPS

STEP ONE:

Ask your local council who you should contact for advice in setting up a Tenants and Residents Association (in the case of Chenies Street Chambers, it was the very useful Francis Brazil, from the Camden Federation of Tenants and Residents Association, listed in the Contact Number list). They will help you set up your first meeting, take minutes at the first meeting so that it is an official meeting and bring you a recommended Constitution so that you can become an official body with your first meeting.

Come prepared to schedule your second meeting a month after your first, so that you can address the issues raised at the first meeting. For instance, identify your most pressing problem with your building. If the issue is Maintenance, invite your caretaker, caretaker supervisor, and the supervisor who supervises the supervisor (in our case, our PATCH worker) to your second meeting (and if your concern is Maintenance, try to schedule an official walk-about with these people before your second meeting).

STEP TWO: THE DAY AFTER YOUR FIRST MEETING

1. Post a communal notice board, so that everyone in the building can exchange their views. Don't settle for the small, locked notice board that your Council may offer you - it isn't big enough or accessible enough for your building's needs.You need a notice board that is open, so that everyone can write their comments.

Don't wait for the Council to put up your notice board for you - put up thick cardboard with Blue-Tack as a temporary board. Do it immediately, so that you can start to share ideas as a community, with common concerns.



On the Notice Board, you will want:

An Ongoing Maintenance List, for tenants and residents to be able to contribute any maintenance problems they know of in the communal area.

A Contact Number list so people can complain to the people responsible for the building directly.

A Notice explaining the use of the Notice Board, and who's on the Executive of the Association (list their flat numbers rather than their telephone numbers).

A Problems and Solution list which will be individual to your building.



OTHER THINGS TO DO IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE FIRST MEETING

1.Set up a BOOK EXCHANGE (this link includes a form for you to print off)

One of the simplest ways to build a community spirit in your building is to set up is a Book Exchange, which is simply a cardboard box, or plastic box, or small book-case, set up in an area most people pass, with a notice inviting people to place books in that they have enjoyed, and to take out books they find interesting.

2. If necessary, post a NO DUMPING sign (this link includes a form for you to print off)

If you have a problem with people dumping garbage in inappropriate places or people dumping large objects such as mattresses, in hallways, you will have to post a No Dumping Notice. Try to be tactful about where notices are posted (no one likes to live with signs).
Have it printed, if possible, and laminated.

3. If necessary, post a SECURITY sign on your main entrance door or main entrance window(this link includes a form for you to print off).
Make sure that visitors can read the sign, so they know residents will not let them in if they don't know them.

4. Set up an E-MAIL address for your Tenants and Residents Association.

4. If necessary, ask your District Housing Manager for signs to post, with Advice in Case of Fire. If they don't provide them, you can adapt our notice to be site-specific for your building. Fire Prevention Notice.

5. If necessary, post the emergency number to repair the lift on every floor, beside the lift (a small, laminated notice under the push button  is sufficient).

6. Set up a bank account or building society account. Camden Council uses the Co-operative Band (there is a branch on Southahmpton Row). The Alliance and Leicester Building Society can be used if you would prefer to use the Post Office as your point of contact. The account must be set up so that two people must co-sign each cheque. Agree that one of these people should always be the Treasurer and give co-signing powers to your co-chairs, or chair and secretary (or anyone who is willing to assume the responsibility).

Since the Treasurer is responsible for accounting for the money at the end of the year, the Treasurer must keep the cheque book (along with all receipts and, where-ever possible, photo-copies of the cheques). Keep this in a double-ringed binder, and invest in a stapler and a hole punch, plus several hard plastic folders  that clip shut securely that you can punch holes in, so that you can keep small items (like your cheque book and bank identification card) safe in the binder as well.  

1.Try to pay everything by cheque, no matter how small the amount. This way you will at least have an accurate record of out-goings.

2.Fill in the details on your cheque stubs and if possible, photo-copy the cheques before they are sent, so you have a record of the details and date of the cheque.

3. Keep all your receipts. Tape each receipt to an A4 piece of paper and add the details (who, what, where, why, when) and store it in the binder. Number these receipts chronologically (according to when the money was sent).

4.Store each bank statement in the binder as soon as it arrives (although duplicates can be ordered from your bank, if you find you haven't).

At the end of the year, as you are preparing your Treasurer's Report, prepare a list, recording each receipt (what cheque number was used to pay, if you paid by cheque)



OTHER COMMUNAL SOLUTIONS:


PAINTING:  CHOOSING A COLOUR FOR COMMUNAL WALLS

SETTING UP A COMMUNAL CHRISTMAS TREE

CELEBRATING HALLOWE'EN WITH SMALL CHILDREN



RIGHTS AS AN ASSOCIATION:

You are entitled to a free telephone calling card, which will allow you to make free phone calls to your Council's switchboard (ask your District Housing Manager, or the Council worker in charge of the start-up grant how to get one).

You are entitled to a £150 start-up grant (circa October 2001).

You are entitled to various grants after the start-up grant.

Camden Council is encouraging everyone to get on-line, so your Association may be entitled to a free computer.

Free photo-copying is available from various neighbourhood centres (in our case, it's provided by the Fitzrovia Centre on Tottenham Street). It may also be available from your Federation of Tenants' and Residents' Association. You will need free photo-copying for things like notices of meetings, etc.



TOP TIPS

TOP TIP: If another tenant or resident criticises something you are doing, stop doing it immediately, and make them responsible for the project instead. The more people involved in your Tenants and Residents Association, the more you will get done.

There are people who work at your Council who are still idealistic; find them, and deal with them whenever possible.


If you have a problem, ask your resource person from the Federation of Tenants and Residents Association - or ask someone from another Residents' Association -you don't have to work out everything for yourself.

Buy a stapler and a hole-punch and a three-ring binder for everyone involved in a major subject (Treasurer, Co-Chair, Secretary, Maintenance, Lift, Heritage, Garden, Restoration, Council DMC's etc). File your correspondence as it comes and keep copies of all the letters you send. (make sure you keep copies of e-mails if they're important, as wel)l.

If you get the Council to agree to something, make sure you get it in writing. Use e-mail or letters rather than the telephone, so you always have a copy.

Remember everyone is a volunteer. You can't ask people to do something they don't want to do (on the other hand, if they do want to do something, they will do it willingly, and well). So if there is someone interested in Heritage, form a Heritage and Conservation Committee for them, if there's someone concerned about the Lift, put them on the Lift Committee, if you have someone who has access to a computer, ask them to type up the Maintenance list from the Notice Board and send it by e-mail to the Council (it will take them ten minutes to type and send the list, and post the new blank Maintenance list on the Notice Board, every three to four weeks).

Ask around, it may be that you have a lawyer or a retired lawyer living in your building, which is very useful if you need a resource person. Painters and builders are also useful, as are accountants, architects, conservation experts, photographers, historians, gardeners, typists, professional cleaners, engineers, people with children, people with disabilities, etc.

If possible, elect two co-chairs to your executive (one a council tenant, one a person who owns the flat) and make anyone who attends the first meeting part of an ad hoc committee dealing with Concerns of the Building.

Form committees with at least two people on each, if possible, so that they can engage the Council in correspondence about their particular concerns:
Maintenance and Caretaking
Painting
The Lift
Heritage and Conservation
On-going Grants
Notice Board
Complaints

Don't worry if you don't get volunteers for this committee the first time round; as people become more interested in the concerns of their building, they will eventually volunteer to take over some of the jobs. You need a bare minimum elected Executive to be taken seriously as an Association (and a public notice board, so you can solicit opinions about things that concern everyone) and the rest will follow.

The notice board will allow people to do things - don't just do everything for them. (For instance, if you are discussing  choosing the paint colour for the communal walls, your Paint Committee can put up the most popular six colours from STAGE ONE, but the notice should also invite people put up their own paint samples, and make it clear it is their responsibility to put up the samples, rather than expecting someone to do it for them.)

If you have to talk to Council workers on the telephone, arrange a coffee afternoon or morning with another tenant or resident, and telephone with them in the room. It will help your confidence, and it will also be useful to have someone to back you up if the Council worker accuses you of being rude (which, of course, you would never be).

If you are volunteering to telephone Council workers, talk to Council workers that you like; if you don't like a particular person, find someone who else to talk to them. Remember to be scrupulously polite, but don't compromise; if you want clean floors, don't stop complaining until you get clean floors. Don't settle for less.

If you want clean stairs, be prepared to clean half of each stair in a flight of stairs, and then complain. If necessary, clean a bit in front of the Council worker, to show that it takes a 99p scrubber on a stick and some Flash or Fairy Liquid, not a £3,000 machine to get the stairs, floors and wall clean.

Particularly at the start of your Association, there may be Council workers who try to deny you are an official Association. Direct them, if they are in Camden, to Camden Council's website's "Cindex" which lists Tenants and Residents Associations. If you're an official Association, you will be listed there within three weeks of sending in your papers (particularly if you notify them yourselves. Use the form on the Camden Council Website).

The start-up grant money should come through within three weeks of your formation. If it doesn't, either e-mail or ring up the Council worker responsible every day until it does (using your free calling card, which gives you free telephone calls to the Council).

Send all serious complaints, especially Maintenance complaints, to the Council in writing (which is why it's useful to have an e-mail address). If it's in writing, it has to be taken account of at some point (if it's just a telephone conversation, the exchange often gets lost).

Don't let Council workers have 'unofficial' walk-abouts with you, they don't do any good. You want the walk-about to be official, and for the Council worker to write it up and send you , and the supervisor, a copy of the findings.

When e-mailing, send everything in an e-mail text, rather than by attachment.

This site contains a list of Camden Council job descriptions, circa 2002,  including a general job description for caretakers and site supervisors and patch managers. Ask for a site-specific job description for the poeple concerned with the care of your building. If you don't get it, continue to ask. The Council has a responsibility to explain their jobs and status to you. Also, if caretaking is a problem, ask for a break-down of hours and tasks for the caretaker. If you don't get it, keep asking.

 Suggested Caretaker checklist.

If the Council worker insists on correspondence from you with a letterhead, simply write Tenants and residents Association, your building's name and address on a piece of paper, and then photo-copy it .  This is all you need to do to have 'official letterhead ' and your letter can be hand-written (please remember to keep photocopies of all your correspondence).

Don't get cynical or pessimistic and don't waste time whinging.  (We have a whinge tax - you get to complain two times, then the third time in the same session that you complain about exactly the same thing in exactly the same words,  you have to put in a pound to a whinge fund, for either biscuits for meetings or plants for the garden)


Set up things for discussion as PROBLEM .... POSSIBLE SOLUTION and keep trying to find the solution to each problem (if one thing doesn't work, try another).

It will get easier, as time goes on. If all else fails though, go to the Camden Council Ombudsman (ask your District Housing Manager for the contact address) or, if it's a juicy story, take it straight to the Camden New Journal.

Contact Numbers for Camden Council