Board Members
Michael Gelling OBE, Chair
Michael is the Chairperson of his local estate Neighbourhood Forum, Palace Fields in Runcorn, Halton and is also a founder member of Runcorn Residents Federation, which traditionally covered a New Town area. Michael served on the local Council for sixteen years and held a number of key positions in that time including that of Vice Chair of Housing. Michael has continued in the housing arena through his membership of the Tenants' and Residents' Organisations of England.
Michael has served as a Director of the Independent Housing Ombudsman's service representing TAROE for a full six year period.
In Runcorn where he lives, Michael is involved in many voluntary and community groups which cover the disciplines of community safety, poverty, disability, youth, welfare rights and drug issues.
Michael is very proud to be the Chair of the very successful Halton Credit Union, Chair of the seventy place Acorn Community Nursery and is equally proud to be the Company Secretary of Halton Community Partnership Trust, which is a one-stop shop for the voluntary sector.
Michael has a background in personnel and has served, since 1979, as a lay member of the Employment Tribunals service and is also the Chairperson of the Liverpool Employment Tribunals Members' Association.
Cora Carter MBE, Vice Chair
Cora was appointed as Chair in April 2010, having previously served as Vice Chair of TAROE since 2009, and the Secretary of TAROE since its formation in 1997.
Previous to this, Cora served as the secretary of the National Tenants' and Residents' Federation from 1989 to its merger with the National Tenants' Organisation and the creation of TAROE in 1997. Cora is the Chair of Kirklees Federation of Tenants' & Residents' Associations who represent 120 tenants' and residents' associations within the borough.
Kirklees has 37,500 tenants and residents.
KFTRA was formed in 1987.
Cora has been secretary of her own tenants' and residents' association since its inauguration in 1984.
Cora has been involved in a range of housing related working groups, consultation with the CLG and other Government departments, and other professional housing groups.
Tenant participation has always been at the forefront of all the work that Cora does and always will be.
Dennis Rees OBE,
Dennis is Chair of Derby Homes and of the National Federation of Arms Length Management Organisations (ALMOs). He has been involved in tenant participation in Derby for the past 18 years.
Dennis is a Board Member of the Tenant Services Authority (TSA). He is also a Board Member of the Tenant Participation Advisory Service (TPAS).
Dennis is Treasurer of Derby Association Of Community Partners (DACP Ltd) as well as Derby's Tenant Federation.
Dennis talks locally and nationally about the benefits of ALMOs to tenants, local authorities and Government Ministers. Dennis is a tenant member of the review group looking at freedoms and flexibilities for ALMOs. He is also a Tenant Inspection Advisor to the Audit Commission.
John Townend
John was elected to the TAROE Board at the 2009 AGM in Sheffield. He is the previous Vice Chair of Berneslai Homes, and is currently assistant secretary of the Barnsley Federation, Chair of Carlton TARA, and also governor of his local hospital.
Working as an integral member of a small focused team, John has assisted in the development of a sub-regional group, the South Yorkshire Network, to allow a greater voice regionally, and encourage tenant empowerment.
John is committed to the principles of tenant involvement and works tirelessly to ensure that the concerns and issues facing tenants today are highlighted and their rights upheld.
Mike Weston
Mike spends much of his time involved in social housing. This all came about after attending a tenants day at Leeds & Yorkshire Housing. From this he joined a tenants review panel and also became further involved in other tenants forums. He undertook some training and then took a City and Guilds Diploma course in Citizenship specialising in social housing.
This lead to him being elected by the tenants to the board of Leeds & Yorkshire Housing, this being his fourth year on the board
Also for the last four years he has been on the board of Leeds Tenants Federation, which after a year as Deputy Chair elected him last June (2012) to Chair. He has for three years represented LTF at Defend Council Housing and was one of the originators of the offshoot Housing Emergency group.
He was asked by L& Y H/ass to join the C.I.H. and served a year on the York's & Humberside regional committee. He resigned from this last year prior to being elected onto the TAROE board.
He has always had involvement in voluntary work starting with the Samaritan's which lead him to specialise in debt management for vulnerable clients.
In his work he was committee member and then Chair for the Yorkshire region of the Life Assurance Association. Within this role he was a regular speaker at other regional meetings and was an approved speaker for Allied Dunbar. His other involvement was assisting in running regional and national conferences with attendances ranging from 200 to over 2,000.
Martyn Kingsford TD FRICS FCIH, (Co-opted Member and Honorary Policy Advisor)
Martyn is a Chartered Surveyor and Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Housing. He started his career in Nottingham Council over 45 years ago and was Director of Housing at Kensington and Chelsea from 1984 and was Chief Executive of the TMO.
For eight years, Martyn was Policy Advisor to the London Boroughs Association and Co-Chair of the London Homeless Working Party.
Martyn has chaired four Housing Associations over the past thirty years, a member of the RICS Residential Panel, CIH London Committee, and was a member of the NHF Tenant Involvement Commission.
Martyn has been Honorary Policy Advisor to TAROE since 2000.
Andrea Creedon, FCA (Co-opted Member and Honorary Financial Advisor)
Andrea is a Chartered Accountant with more than 20 years' experience in business planning and financial management.
She has worked closely with senior leaders in major organisations across the public and private sector, including Littlewoods, Norweb and Remploy. Andrea has held a number of board level roles and now works as a part time finance director and leadership coach.
Andrea is a strong believer in working collaboratively to deliver sustainable change. She was co-opted to the Board in January 2010.