January TORC News Bulletin
January 2022 TORC News Bulletin
Happy new year to all our residents and welcome to the January 2022 edition of the tenant engagement News Bulletin. This month, you can get involved by attending a Community or Residents Group meeting in your area, taking the tenant engagement plan 2022 survey and by submitting an entry to The Resilience Campaign.
TORC Scheme updates:
Over the next two weeks, the TORC team are welcoming new residents to 30 properties in Clonakilty and 12 properties in Skibbereen. This means that these two Cork schemes are very nearly fully allocated. Towards the end of the month, we will also hand over the keys of 16 homes to residents in Clane, Kildare. We are getting excitingly close to having all 465 TORC homes fully allocated!
Bethany – Tenant Engagement Coordinator
Feedback from Christmas Initiatives
We had an overwhelmingly positive response to activities and initiatives that we ran in December. The Christmas Craft packs were a particular success with 101 packs being sent out to residents who registered. We will certainly be bringing this initiative back at the end of this year. A big thank you to all the residents who took the time to get in touch and give feedback, it was lovely to read through them all. Below are some of the fabulous photos and feedback sent in:
“I thought you might like a photo of the Christmas wreath I made with the kit you organised for us. Hoping to use the left-over materials on another Christmas project with my granddaughter during the holiday. Thanks for getting this together. Had more fun than I thought I would have”
“Hi Bethany, my daughters Crystal age 7 and Zara age 3 really enjoyed making the decorations.”
“I had great fun getting the creative juices flowing.”
“Thanks a million for sent a Christmas craft kit to my son. My son isn’t really interested for craft, but your kit encourage him to do some of them and I’m over the moon, that because he tried and made his day when he received. I’m really appreciate your lovely ideas and efforts.”
UPCOMING EVENTS
1/ Community & Residents Group Meetings
Now that the majority of all TORC residents have moved into their new homes, the focus for tenant engagement throughout January is to assist schemes in establishing a Residents Group (also known as a Residents Association).
The first step in this process is for Bethany your Tenant Engagement Coordinator to invite all residents who have signed the tenant engagement consent form to a ‘Community Meeting’. This meeting will be attended by your Housing Services Coordinator and in some cases the local Community Gardai. This first community meeting is hosted in a communal area of your scheme
-look out for the TORC tent! It’s an opportunity to meet your neighbours, highlight any concerns you may have and gauge the interest of residents in starting a Resident Group.
Following the community meeting, you will be invited to the first Resident’s Group Meeting. Our schemes in Shannon and Galway are already at this exciting stage. Our Scheme in Roscommon has established their Resident Group Committee and even hosted their first community event in December- you can read more about that event
here.
For residents living in Clane, Skibbereen and Clonakilty, your first community will be scheduled soon after residents from the second phase have moved in.
For more information about Resident Associations – what they do and how they operate – check out the link below. If you have any questions about Resident Associations or would like to get involved in one on your scheme, please contact
getinvolved@torcsustainablehousing.ie
Community Meetings
Pairc Ui Mhuirithe, Macroom
Tuesday 18th January 3.30pm
On Site – communal area
Presentation Gardens, Waterford
Wednesday 26th January 3.30pm
On Site – communal area
Douglas Drive, Roscommon
Thursday 27th January 6.30pm
South Roscommon FRC
Clairin, Galway
Thursday 20th January 6.00pm
Knocknacarra Community Centre
Drom Cuilinn, Shannon
Tuesday 25th January 6.30pm
Treacy’s Oakwood Hotel
2/ The Resilience Campaign
The TORC team understand that the past few years living with Covid has been extremely difficult for everyone and for some people it has particularly devastating. It has taken a lot of mental strength to cope in these challenging times. We also recognize that many of our residents have overcome adversity in their life and continued to thrive, showing true resilience.
Facing into this new 2022 year, we want to hear your uplifting stories of resilience – what challenge did you face and how did you overcome it? You can write about a personal experience or nominate another resident (perhaps your partner, child, or neighbour) for showing resilience in a particular situation. We are welcoming stories from both adults and children.
- Perhaps you’ve managed to find a new job after losing your first one during Covid?
- Maybe despite parenting alone you have gone back to study?
- Perhaps your child really helped you through a period of ill health?
- Maybe you managed to do your Leaving Cert despite the Covid disruptions at school?
- Maybe your friend/neighbour has been through a lot of change in the last year but has managed to stay strong?
All entries will receive a little something from TORC to celebrate your accomplishment but there are two main prizes that will be given to the two best entries in each category as selected by our panel.
For more information on The Resilience Campaign,visit our website. Click the link below to find out how to submit an entry.
3/ Tenant Engagement Plan 2022 Survey
We want to hear from YOU! Tenant Engagement is all about making sure that the voices and opinions of our tenants are heard and responded to. We are always looking for ways that we can improve our services and we welcome feedback – both positive and constructive criticisms! For 2022, we want you to be a part of the process of designing initiatives that best represent the needs and interests of TORC residents.
Please take the survey linked below – it has just 12 questions and should take less than 5 minutes. There are interesting questions about what type of prizes you think we should give, whether you spent the €10 tenant end-of-year bonus voucher and what type of activities we should run this year. Complete as many of the questions as possible, but you can also skip any that you’re not sure about.
All survey participants will be entered into a raffle to win a €30 Supervalu voucher, a €25 One4All Voucher, or a €10 Lidl Voucher.