Somer Housing Group's Board
We know that what we do matters. The
pressures of factors such as an ageing population, increasing
household formation, aggravated affordability across the region,
and the widening poverty gap, all mean that there is a desperate
shortage of the sorts of homes and services we provide. We are
responding to this challenge in three main ways. Firstly by
concentrating on delivering excellent services; secondly, by
ensuring that we deliver as much new housing as we can; and
thirdly, by ensuring that our staff are motivated to take on the
difficult jobs they have to do.
There are currently nine board
members.
Patrick Harkness (Group Chair)
Patrick Harkness
has worked as a Chief Executive; been appointed by the Housing
Corporation as a statutory Board member; and has served on the
Boards of three other housing associations, including a six year
spell as a Group Chair in London. He is Managing Director of a
consultancy that works with a wide range of clients across all
sectors. Within the consultancy he leads on strategic, corporate
development, governance, business development and communications
work.
John Bader
(Chair of Somer Community Housing Trust)
John retired from the
Welsh Assembly in 2005 where he was Director of the Social Justice
& Regeneration Department, after working as a housing
professional for over 40 years. One of his responsibilities with
the Assembly was the regulation of registered social landlords in
Wales, so he has a strong interest in good governance of housing
associations.
Tom Battersby
(Chair of Redland Housing Association)
Tom Battersby has a long standing interest in housing
associations, having worked in West London as a housing officer
before starting in IT. He lives in Bath and works for Capita
Software Services in Trowbridge.
Stan Rodliffe
(Chair of Shape Housing Association)
Stan Rodliffe is retired from the electricity supply
industry where he developed a broad range of general management
skills. His knowledge of housing was gained over nine years on the
Board of South Western Housing Society. He is currently a
non-executive director and charity trustee of Teign Housing, a
volunteer working for The Prince’s Trust and engaged in a variety
of other activities in his local community.
Margaret Connor
Margaret is
a Tenant Trustee with Somer Community Housing Trust and also Tenant
Representative for Keynsham and Villages. She has been a tenant
since 1976 and was active with the options appraisal process and
the residents’ steering group prior to transfer. She was previously
Chair of the Somer Residents’ Committee before her appointment to
the Board.
Roger Hill
Roger is a fellow of
the Institute of Environmental Health and has worked for Bath City
and Bath and North East Somerset councils for 31 years. At
retirement he was the Private Sector Housing Manager and since then
has worked in both South Gloucestershire and West Wiltshire housing
departments in various housing roles, including for a time the
Principal Housing Services Manager. He has been a Board member of
Shape for 17 years and has a long-term interest in housing for the
disadvantaged.
Andy Riggs
Andy Riggs is a chartered accountant and has been working
within the education sector for 15 years. He is the Deputy Director
of Finance for the University of the West of England, Bristol.
He trained with Coopers and Lybrand in Manchester, before
working for a Further Education college in the North West, latterly
as Director of Finance, and then working with the University of
Chester as Director of Resources.
Andy has a degree in geography from Nottingham University and an
MBA from Manchester Metropolitan University. He has been previously
a trustee of a charity working with the homeless in Manchester and
on the board of a community centre in Warrington, and is a trustee
and treasurer of a local church in South Gloucestershire.
Janet Durk
A tenant since 1999, Janet Durk has been a tenant
representative for Timsbury on the Norton Radstock and Villages
Area Panel for four and a half years. She served as secretary
for two years and Vice Chair for two years, and has chaired the
Somer Residents’ Committee (SRC) for the last year. She
believes very strongly in resident involvement at every level to
improve the services that tenants receive from Somer, and
particularly likes to encourage younger people to be more active in
a positive way on Area Panels and the SRC. Janet spent some of
her working life in care work and most of it in business, retiring
as a manager in the leisure industry.
Martin Jelbart
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