Caledonia chair Alan Nairn

Two of the individuals are current tenants who will bring first-hand knowledge of Caledonia’s services to the board room. The third board member appointed is an experienced housing professional.

Katherine Burke from Inverness works in service delivery for a major aerospace manufacturing company and also volunteers for a local mental health charity. She brings valuable insight to the board as a tenant of Caledonia Housing Association.

Katherine said she is pleased to be appointed to the role. “It is important that tenants are involved in the decision making processes and I hope my experience as a tenant will be an asset to the board,” she added.

Thomas Davis is also a tenant of Caledonia Housing Association. He works as an engineer providing technical support, project management and business development for civil engineering projects.

Thomas stated: “This board position allows me to use my communication and organisational skills. It will be good to be able to offer a professional and personal perspective to new development projects.”

Allan Jones is a housing professional with over 20 years’ experience in the sector, working at Aberdeenshire Council in tenant participation, policy and most recently managing a team of over 100 employees responsible for housing allocations and homelessness across the region.

Allan commented on his appointment: “I am pleased I can use my experience and skills to support Caledonia’s ambition of providing high quality housing and services for people in housing need.”

Alan Nairn, chair of the board, said: “It is very important that the board understands the key issues that affect tenancies. This year we have actively encouraged tenants to join our Board to provide valuable insight and opinion at governance level.

“We want to have a board that has a range of skills and experience to be able to make informed decisions, and which is open to new ideas and approaches to improving and developing the homes and services we provide.

“We have significant challenges and opportunities ahead such as investing in our existing housing stock and services to support our tenants and at the same time delivering ambitious regeneration projects. The board must ensure we also push the ‘net zero’ agenda and that future investment is in place to achieve our environmental targets.

“In a time of continued change I am pleased we have had a successful recruitment campaign and continue to have board members with the skills and experience to succeed and move the association forward.”