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Have we had problems! And it is, of course, all the fault of Bill Gates! Our computer decided to take a holiday. Aparantly the problem stemmed from the fact that Microsoft Windows 3.1 now belongs in the museum and not on a computer!
We purchased a new modem. And then the troubles began! The manufacturer asumes that everyone with a computer these days has progressed from the dark ages!
They reckoned without the Kingsholm Tenants Consultative Committee! Oh yes, we have a member who is still the proud owner of a Commodore 64 - and still uses it to play the odd game!
To cut a long story short, while we had Windows 3.1, we had IBM Dos (and not Microsoft DOS). This aparantly spelled "trouble" with upgrading to Windows Ninetysomething.
So a kindly Bill Adie, who owns AD Computing in Gloucester, got us out of the deep hole that we got ourselves into! We now have Windows Ninetysomething and Word Small Business Something. And Bill Gates has just got richer by a couple of quid!
Anyway, everything seems to be working (is it the kiss of death admitting that?). Even the latest version of Front Page Express can be used on the computer to produce these pages.
And to the less famous "Bill" - thanks, and yes, the cheque is in the post! Our policy of going to local business does have its advantages! We have been criticised in the past by some council officers for not going for the cheapest price for goods and services.
We have always maintained that spending our money locally is "recycling" cash within the community. This in turn helps to keep businesses solvent and paying the uniform business rates, not to mention the employment aspect!
Then of course, we have always maintained that while a small buisness might be a little more expensive intitially, in the long term it does work out cheaper, especially when something goes wrong!
We have always seen this as "best value" - and now local authorities have to consider "best value"!
We heard a good one today! Our friends at neighbouring Westgate Tenants Consultative Committee had a visit from housing department big-wigs in a bid to sort out the estate cleaning problem that has arisen.
The chair of Westgate TCC, Graham Williams, was indicating how he would handle to problem when one of the officials turned to him and said words to the effect that of course Graham had not had too much experience in "man management". Another big-wig almost died of shock at hearing that!
Now, for the record, Graham spent a lifetime in the Army. He was in the Royal Artillery and when he retired he had reach the heights of a Sergeant Major - a Battery Sergeant Major is RA terminology!
The British Army might be interested to know that their "man management" skills appear to count for now't at a certain desk within the Gloucester City Council!
The weekend brought its usual crop of mayhem by kids! Yesterday, the "little darlings" were seen with tubes of Polyfilla, or some other such substance, filling up the keyholes on doors on the estate!
The police were informed, but there is not much chance of catching the culprits!
More worrying is the half dozen holes that mysteriously appeared in a toughened glass window in the communal area of one of the blocks over the weekend. The glass was not shattered, but the damage looks as though it was done by something round and at high velocity.
An air rifle, perhaps?
Still no new Area Housing Officer to replace Louise Beard who now is having a really tough life lazing on a beach in Southern California!
Hazel Gray has been appointed, but has not arrived yet. This mean that the adgenda for tomorrow's TCC meeting has not been set. So, we did it without the imput of the Area Housing Officer!
We only hope that someone turns up tomorrow evening!
Matters came to a head today concerning the alterations of the times that the "Trades Button" worked on the door entry system of four blocks.
There had been an agreement by a Tenants Forum working party, whose minutes had been approved by both the Forum and Housing Committee, that the times that "Trades Buttons" were effective should be determined locally at each area office, in consultation with tenants.
But when a "contractor", the legendary Gloucester City Services, altered the time clocks on four blocks to make the "Trades Button" effective from 6 am to 10 am and then again from 3pm to 6pm, it appears that it was done without the knowledge - or an official order - from anyone in Housing!
The general manager of Gloucester City Services called to say that an investigation had revealed that the electrical sub-contractors had mis-interpreted an instruction and had gone ahead and altered the time clocks! And, yes, the time clocks would be re-set later today.
Well, at least they admitted that a mistake had been made! But what we now have to do is to make sure that Housing is not charged for the original "unauthorised" change ... OR the alteration back to what the timing were originally!
The other thing that the GM of GCS said to our chairman was that in future we must not go to his organisation, but complain ONLY to the Area Housing Office who would take the matter up with Gloucester City Services.
As regular readers of this "diary" will no doubt remember, this is exactly what we did several weeks ago! And the Housing Office checked with Gloucester City Services who in turn said that no alteration had been done! Housing Office then replied: "Oh, yes it had!". And Gloucester City Services retorted: "Oh no it hasn't". To which the Housing Office responded ....
Well, you know!!!
Our chair blew his proverbial top! Why should the TCC NOT directly approach Gloucester City Services, he inquired? The correct procedures had been used, but the Area Housing Office ended "up the creek without a paddle"!
Anyway, we hope the pantomime is now over ..... and now comes the bows ....
A big round of applause for the stars, yes, Gloucester City Services and their "grand dame" ....
While we were "off air" with the computer problems, the whereabouts of the gizzmo for programming key fobs for the estate laundry door entry was revealed by Gloucester City Services. Oh yes, they DIRECTLY approached us, and did not go through the Area Housing Office!
But when we tried to programme a key fob, it didn't work. So we got back to Gloucester City Services (not through the Area Housing Office) to tell them that there was still a problem.
They then contacted us (again, not through you know where) to tell us that their sub contractor would be contacting us (US, not "you know where").
The sub contractor duly phoned and then faxed the instructions as the laundry gizzmo is different from the normal block door entry gizzmos.
Fax arrived. Surprise, surprise! It was written in English that we could understand ... and it had a lot of pretty pictures to help us understand. New keys were programmed within seconds!
Of course, if we had to talk to Gloucester City Services through Westgate Housing Office (like we have to now), it would have taken until the 12th of Never to be able to programme a key fob.
We think that we will have to alter our definition of "red tape" to: ...A special tape they use at the Gloucester City Services for tying up people in complex procedures so that vital work cannot be done (click here, and then scroll down for our original definition)
Just a quick reminder that we DO know about the problems with the guest book. The problem is being worked on, but we suspect that the snag is at TenZero, the company that provides the guestbook at no cost to us. Some of you are Emailing us instead - and thanks for the comments. We are told by TenZero that there is a massive problem and they are busy re-writing programmes (or should that be programs?).