I am delighted to accept the honour of becoming the next chair of Leeds Jewish Housing Association and rather than just be a faceless name, I thought I could let you all know a bit about me.

My name is Jayne Wynick and I am Leeds born and bred. Now aged 55 I have a lovely hubby, David, two daughters, one dog, and one very gorgeous grandson.

I have worked in fashion for over 25 years but switched to financial services 12 years ago and now run a business conducting research for financial advisers.

I got involved with LJHA quite a few years ago on the tenants’ committee, now the operations sub-board with the promise that it would only take up a little of my time.
I then joined the main board when Sheila Saunders decided I may have a little spare time on my hands. As those of you who knew Sheila, if she decided, who was I to argue.

I have served as vice-chair of the board for 4 years now, with Kate Pearlman-Shaw as chair. We were both delighted, as were our mums, Bernice Pearlman and Lynda Ross, to be the first all-female chair and vice of LJHA.

When Kate decided to move on, I had to decide if I was up to taking on this redoubtable position.

My aim has always been to help provide the best quality housing for our community for those in need, be it support, financial or any other need. I love meeting you, our tenants and residents, love hearing how your homes with us have improved your lives and truly, don’t even mind when you let me know how we can improve things. That is what we are here for and I am truly proud that Leeds has this provision. So, after thinking this through, I knew I could not walk away and now find myself as chair of this amazing organisation.

As I take on this position, I have set myself some aims. As most of you are aware, we are looking to start redeveloping part of our site very soon.

This will provide fabulous new apartments for both sheltered and general needs tenants, giving affordable and modern homes to over 80 families.
To do this, due to the high and prohibitive cost of land in Leeds 17, we have had to move 22 families and to those, I extend my thanks for accepting this unexpected disruption in your lives.

As an association, we have to look to improve and keep building much needed homes and we hope to continue looking for development opportunities to ensure we have good quality, modern homes for all.

However, building is just one aspect of what we do. Truly the heart of LJHA is our tenants and residents, and my focus is on making LJHA a more approachable, listening organisation that puts our tenants and residents at the heart.

With this in mind, I have a request – Join us on this journey. We are always looking for involvement from our tenants and residents to help steer this and in the next few months, we are looking to build on our tenant engagement and involvement.

Any of you that would like to be involved in any way, be it on our Service Improvement Panel or other tenant groups get in touch with Debby Williams and together, we can continue to improve LJHA.

I am looking forward to the next few years and please, if you see me around at any point, come up and say hello, I, like most other Jewish women, am always happy to talk.

Jayne Wynick,
Chair of Board of Management,
Leeds Jewish Housing Association