Kingdom Housing Association has presented a long service award to Catherine Marnoch, its longest serving member of staff, who has worked with the Association for 30 years.

Today Catherine is finance manager for the Association. But when she started with the association in September 1985 she was one of the Association’s first employees and at that time Kingdom had no tenants or houses. Kingdom has grown since those early days and now has almost 4,000 properties and over 360 employees.

Catherine has also developed her career over the years, starting as office administrator, then finance assistant, before being promoted to finance officer and latterly finance manager in 1993.

Catherine said: “When I started with Kingdom the main job tasks were secretarial, reception, administration and book keeping, which really meant everything! Looking back there has always been something new or different at Kingdom, sometimes small, sometimes challenging and certainly no time to be bored and standstill and I think that is what keeps it interesting for me. The 30 years have gone by in a flash!”

Catherine recalled her interview for the job and Laurie Naumann, one of the founding board members was part of the interview panel and 36 years after helping form Kingdom, Laurie is still supporting Kingdom as an active board member and vice chairperson of Kingdom.

He said: “It has, indeed, been an honour to have worked with committed colleague board members and staff, as well as other stakeholders, over all these years.

“Kingdom has really, throughout that period, been working hard to achieve the original objectives we set of providing housing, preventing homelessness and offering support to tenants requiring a little more than just a house. I’m proud to have been a part of Kingdom and seeing the significant contribution it has made not just with housing, but also more widely, to the well-being of Fife over the past three decades.”

Kingdom chairperson Charles Milne also thanked Liz Pow and Vince O’Hara who were retiring from the board and recognised the many years of service they had both given to Kingdom as board members.

Kingdom has also announced that Linda Leslie has been elected as a new board member and Mr Milne welcomed Linda to the board.

Linda, who has experience of social housing policy, regulation and housing management said: “Kingdom’s annual report highlights the organisation’s many achievements. I’m delighted to be elected to serve on the board and look forward to working with the chair, other board members and the management team to deliver the Association’s objectives.”

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