Residents' Association relaunched with a bang - well done Worton!
Last night I had the honour of chairing the Annual General Meeting of Residents Of Worton Estate (ROWE) the official RA of the community on Isleworth ward's second largest housing estate.The association has been going for many years but as is so often the case too much responsibility had fallen on too few shoulders and active membership had dwindled to a bare few.A few months ago Hounslow Homes unilaterally announced that it was "suspending" the existing association (!) and seemed to be trying to promote a factional takeover by one group of residents who were keen to reboot the association and get it active again. The aim of vitalising ROWE was of course a worthy one but I and my fellow ward councillors sensed that there was more to this and we were uneasy with the implicit hostility to the existing committee members who had tried their best under difficult circumstances (one of whom is in her late seventies and was recently critically ill).Fortunately the residents asked me as their elected ward councillor to chair the meetings leading up to and including the AGM. The result was the election of a united committee comprising the existing Chair, a new Secretary and Treasurer and a full compliment of committee members from a cross-section of the community. A spirit of real unity was apparent at the meeting and committee members old and new seem very keen to pull together for the greater good of the whole community on the estate. The well-attended meeting discussed a number of outstanding estate issues which the reborn association will be taking up with the various appropriate authorities with the full support of their elected members.Taking a leaf out of Hounslow Homes' own book, their invite was sent by second-class post to the wrong address and ought to arrive some time next week.Obviously as everybody is welcome to participate in the association there will be no demand on the estate for the establishment of any rival or parallel group - everybody is able to work together as one, which is how it should be done.My sincere congratulations and best wishes go out to ALL the people on the estate who had the foresight to come together to make this work. I am very, very excited by this development and pledge to it my wholehearted co-operation and support.Well done Worton!
Phil Andrews ● 7401d4 Comments