Our Tenant Champion for 2010 was Lynne Wickham from Lordshill.
Whilst there are many people that are good neighbours, Lynne really goes above and beyond, keeping an eye on her neighbours particularly over the cold and winter months, helping with shopping for housebound neighbours and even cooking and delivering hot meals.
Lynne makes a point of visiting all new tenants who live in her block of flats to say “hello” and make them feel welcome. She also likes to give a “welcome home” card all tenants in her block who have just left hospital and are coming home.
Lynne is very busy organising fund raising activities so she can run Christmas parties and coach trips for the local residents. This includes organising weekly coffee mornings with hot tea and scrummy crumpets and cakes which also helps her neighbours socialise and get to know one another better.
Over the last few years Lynne has almost single-handedly been organising bring and buy sales, with the proceeds going to help run social activities for the residents.
In addition to having a part time job, Lynne is heavily involved with LACE Tenants Association as a secretary. Lynne spends many evenings and afternoons working for the TA and the hard work have definitely paid off as the TA has managed to deal with many issues this year including getting fences mended, graffiti removal and resolving dog fouling issues.
Finally Lynne’s philosophy to helping her neighbours is – “if I can get one person out of their flat and meeting other people it has all been worthwhile.”
Our Tenant Champion for 2009 was Cindy Roper from Townhill Park.
Cindy looked out of her window at a disused piece of land and thought, “wouldn’t it be great to make this piece of land into something the residents are proud of. An area where children can play and people of all ages can socialise in.”
Well Cindy is making that happen.
She persuaded the Council to fence off the land and successfully applied for a £1000 grant for plants and toys.
With this money she is developing a community garden for children, which also contains play, barbeque and seated areas. What’s more, by knocking on doors she has involved the whole community in this project and now has a project team of 20 residents working on this garden.
Our Tenant Champion for 2008 was Carl Collins from Northam
Over the past two years Carl has been organising very popular community events for children in Northam.
The first event was a Pirates Party which was attended by over 50 local children. Carl made all of the games for the event. This included a pair of stocks which he ended up in while the kids threw wet sponges at him!
At Christmas Carl organised a Santa comes to Northam event in which he had built a steam train for Santa to get around the estate in and visit the children.
At Easter he organised another popular kids event for Northam which involved an Easter egg hunt and Easter bonnet parade. Carl and his friends on the Entertainment Committee think up and make all the games for these events themselves. They even do their own fundraising through selling second hand clothes and raffles.
If that wasn’t enough Carl helps run a Fruit and Veg Co-op at Northam and has worked really hard in the Northam Tenant's Association Office, laying new floors, putting up cupboards and improving the garden area. This is in addition to Carl's family and work commitments.
Southampton City Council
