Enough is Enough! Thistle Housing Shareholders Demand A Special General Meeting

1,665 DAYS – FOUR YEARS + 6 MONTHS + 22 DAYS
since Thistle’s mismanaged Major Works Programme started on 7th January 2016
1,337 DAYS – THREE YEARS + 8 MONTHS + 2 DAYS
since 30th November 2016 when “all of the works to all of the houses in Toryglen will be complete“. Today, Wednesday 29th July 2020, still incomplete, work proven to be shoddy and more importantly, dangerous and now possibly hazardous to life and limb with millions of pounds required for rectification work. Thistle Housing has hardly lifted a finger to rectify their misdeeds

Shareholders of Thistle Housing Association Limited have had enough and have called for a Special General Meeting of the association, as per the Rules written by Thistle and agreed by the Scottish Housing Regulator.

Click to download – 200723_request_to_thistle_for_sgm_Redacted

Why has this happened now and why hasn’t it happened before?
Residents and shareholding residents have given Thistle Housing every opportunity to respond to and answer literally dozens of questions over the past four years, mainly regarding the failed Major Works Fiasco and, at each point, have been refused, ignored or lied to.

Yes, this process should have been adopted previously, in fact, years ago, especially given the ramshackle and manipulated Annual General Meetings where residents questions and queries were not welcomed.

Not only have Thistle employees and committee members lied to residents, they have also lied to the First Minister of Scotland, the local MSP, the Leader of Glasgow City Council, the local councillor and to the Scottish Housing Regulator. They have produced falsified statistical returns to the Regulator and they have, constantly, failed on every single requirement the Regulator demands of a housing association. They have wasted millions of pounds due to their ineptitude, ruined Thistle Housing and have made a misery of the lives of hundreds of Toryglen residents.

As Sanctuary Housing (be careful what you wish for!) is in the process of a de facto takeover, without any significant reference to residents and shareholders and the immutable fact that Thistle management continue their secretive ways with no publishing of minutes like other associations, there is no option but to call a Special General Meeting of the association, a meeting to which only shareholders can be invited.

This is the strength of a shareholding. For a mere pound, residents can have a say, hence the reason this blog has, over the past three and a half years of its existence, pushed for Toryglen residents to invest a single pound in their own future and the way that their estate is governed or in Thistle’s dreadful case, misgoverned and not only over the past four years but for the entire nineteen years of its self indulgent tenure of Toryglen..

However, Thistle has, it its own creepy, bullying and controlling fashion, attempted to halt residents from applying for membership (shareholding). Two years ago, the now booted and grossly failed Director disGrace McColgan, managed to get her pals on the committee to sanction a refusal to grant consideration for membership as she/they considered there was effort to increase the number of members. She was correct. This was one of the few times she got anything right.

Similarly, just over four weeks ago on 24 June 2020, the same situation occurred again when membership applications were once again barred when the sneaked a addendum into their amateurish, slow website without any notice at all to shareholders and residents. They could have easily notified residents in their “Response to Transfer Update” of 25 June 2020, the next day but they didn’t. Wonder why?

The comment, “…we consult with the same current shareholders” would bring a tear to a glass eye. Thistle Housing, its management and its committee, have never consulted with shareholders on anything. It has always been a matter of ‘ye’ll dae as yer telt!’

For years they got away with it, doing nothing for Toryglen, building no new homes, leaving backyards like something from a war movie, common closes left to rot then, all of a sudden and without warning, came the Major Works Programme in spring 2016.

They hassled and lied to residents for money (the majority were and are owners), they demanded settlement in cash within days, they refused loans and then they screwed it all up as they didn’t have the intellectual and managerial capabilities to run such a huge project. They wanted cash up front and, as Miss Daniella Sprott, in charge of the project (and inexplicably still employed on a huge salary package) expounded that Thistle didn’t have enough time to warn residents as they wouldn’t get the grants. She said that at the end of October 2016. Yet another lie as the grant funding had been signed off with Glasgow City Council in September 2015 when there was more than sufficient time to suggest to owners that they might have to save up a bob or two.

By this time, residents who had previously little day to day contact with Thistle, had enough. The fight back started. Thistle’s problem was and is that they had never before encountered so much dissension in the ranks of Toryglen residents who they severely underestimated. They took residents for granted and whilst doing so, sat back, lied to the Regulator and lined their own pockets.

Why all the lies? Coincidentally enough, the amount they expected to lever from residents was almost exactly the same as the amount Thistle required to pay for the upgrades to their own properties. Why did they lie about no loans being available (when there were)? They wanted cash, not loans as the loans would not be repaid to Thistle until the contract was complete and to the residents’ satisfaction. Miss Sprott and her partner in crime and drinking buddy, Sandra McGillivray (see footnote below) attempted to wriggle out of the responsibility of retaining the historically failed E.ON as the major contractor, that they were forced by Glasgow City Council to use E.ON, a claim which was immolated by no less than the Head of Housing at Glasgow City Council, Patrick Flynn, who confirmed at meetings and in writing that the choice of contractor was entirely at the behest of Thistle.  The project, three years and eight months later, is still incomplete and more so, the work is shoddy and dangerous.

Lie after lie after lie. The Thistle way.

But why refuse membership/shareholding applications? Why would this be, especially as share applications are prohibited four weeks before an Annual General Meeting in any case? Why the rush to refuse new applications? Simple – yet again, Thistle and its Sanctuary allies together with the Housing Regulator (who wants shot of Thistle at any cost) were afraid that more Toryglen residents would apply for membership, residents who were not necessarily in the pockets of Thistle, so they barred it, cunningly and secretively, as is their way, as new memberships “would not be in the best interests of the Association“.

It’s about time Thistle considered the best interests of Toryglen residents, rather than themselves, hence the call for a Special General Meeting.

More information on this site as it becomes available.

Footnote – A Kick in the Teeth
It has been revealed that Sandra McGillivray, the Liar Stranger to the Truth, who in cahoots with disGrace McColgan, the failed and now booted ex Director, the vanished without trace Finance Manager, Jim Naismith and the inexplicably still in place Daniella Sprott, all being the root causes of the failure of the Major Works Programme, has recently returned as an employee of Thistle Housing Association.

What a kick in the teeth for residents who believed (and were scared out of their wits, especially the older and more vulnerable residents), her threats and lies. Mrs McGillivray suddenly disappeared from Thistle following claims by residents that she had faked signatures on Major Works Minutes of Agreement, claims which have been upheld as being “an error” but “an error” which she made on several occasions. This in addition to the stories, lies and fibs to residents regarding her demand for immediate cash and no loans available. This was the one who announced to residents that “We’ll fix everything” that goes wrong in the Major Works Programme. Like so they did!

She buggered off to Charing X Housing Association in Glasgow (who couldn’t have known everything about her bona fides) and, being Miss Sprott’s ‘social’ friend, has now made an inglorious return. Who proposed her and why? You can probably figure out the answer to that one!