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Our Branch annual report

14/04/08

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At the South East region's Annual General Meeting in Brighton on 4 March 2008, Branch Chair Graham Maunders reported to members on the developments of the last year.

'I am delighted to report that CIH South East continues to go from strength to strength. We host a range of events, while developing relationships with other key regional housing organisations and are also increasing our members' interest in involvement.

Over the past year (2007-08), we have worked together on a number of significant achievements.

• We completed a survey of members' needs and aspirations - feedback included the need for more topical local events, more awareness of the committee's work and generally more information.


• We introduced South East Regional Eye, our quarterly ezine, to replace the previously printed newsletter - Branch Eye.


• The committee introduced a Regional Strategy and Action Plan.


• We held a range of successful regional events including:
  
  • our annual conference in Brighton
  • the Older Person's Conference
  • the Home Ownership Conference
  • our Planning Conference
  • Audit Commission Inspection events.
  
  
• We successfully organised another House of Commons event - it was a complete sell out again and attracted 24 MPs.


• We further developed our excellent South East annual conference, introducing new organisers and relocating to an even better venue.


• The committee successfully introduced the CIH South East Excellence Awards.


• We liaised regularly with key regional agencies including the Housing Corporation, Audit Commission, South East England Development Agency and English Partnerships - the latter sponsored our House of Commons event in January 2008.


• We further developed the role of our Regional Policy Officer. Michelle has collaborated well with CIH centrally, developing work linked with events and other work including an informative research on the impact of buy-to-let in the South East.


• The Regional Housing Forum has continued to be chaired by a CIH member.


• The International group has organised successful housing study trips to Montréal and Berlin.


• We initiated the Past Chairs' Group to further involve the skilled and experienced people we have in our work.

We are seeking to further develop our approach next year (2008-09).

• We will arrange more topical regional and sub-regional events for members and other housing professionals.


• The committee plans to develop links with other regional professional bodies.


• We have agreed to develop a committee appraisal system.


• We will be further developing our Regional Strategy and Action Plan.

I would also like to thank everyone for all their fundraising efforts over the last year. We will be donating £22,402 to this year's regional charity - CRI (Crime Reduction Initiative).

And I am grateful for all the hard work and dedication of my committee colleagues and, in particular, I would like to thank our support officer, Kelly Seenundun, for all her help over the past year.'

Graham Maunders
Chair, CIH South East
March 2008