The Board

Paisley Housing Association is governed by voluntary Board Members elected at our AGM in September each year.

We can have a maximum of 15 people on our Board.

The role of Board Members is to decide on strategic direction. Day to day operational management is carried out by the Senior Management Team.

Some of the Board’s main functions include:

Approving budgets
Employment of senior staff
Review of policies
Review of future maintenance programmes
Agreeing our Development Strategy
Major decision making and organisational direction
Ensuring PHA meets statutory and regulatory requirements

The Board has a major role to play in ensuring PHA’s ongoing success and viability; it meets 7 times per year. PHA also has three Sub-Committees; Audit & Risk, Development and Human Resources, which meet twice per year.

You would be welcome to attend one of our meetings as an observer or join our Training Academy. If you are interested in getting involved, please contact Sandra Marshall on 07735 911 831 or sandra.marshall@paisleyha.org.uk

Members of the Board	Position	Date of Joining	Bio
Karen McMillan	Chair	September 2009	Karen became the Chairperson of PHA in April 2023. Karen has been involved in housing most of her adult life, both professionally and voluntarily. Having worked in all sections from housing management, to maintenance, finance and development, to helping establish a community based Housing Association in Glasgow which she led. Following on from this, Karen led and helped develop a greenspace charity across Glasgow and the Clyde Valley, protecting and developing our community greenspaces to allow green lungs in our towns and cities. Karen strongly believes that allowing the community to be part of the decisions that affect them, makes the community stronger, healthier and more sustainable. It means local decisions get made quicker, by the people they affect. Now retrained as a muscle therapist, she appreciates even more the connection between good, safe, affordable housing and good health, access to education and mental wellbeing. The mum of four continues to want to help the Association achieve this and feels that she can still offer relevant skills to the Board.”
Ian Johnstone	Board Member	April 2014	Ian joined our Board in 2014 and served as PHA’s Chairperson between September 2018 and April 2023.Ian has always been keenly involved with local community work and services and get lots of satisfaction when there are good results. Ian enjoys being part of our Board as he believes we are a forward looking Association who are interested in providing the best service for our tenants. Ian says the Board is very knowledgeable and he is proud to be a part of it.
Michelle Hart	Board Member	July 2019	Michelle is ACCA qualified accountant. Her interest in housing developed when she previously worked in Scottish Homes/ Communities Scotland / Scottish Government. Michelle has been a Board member since 2019 and wishes to use her skills to benefit the community.
Sandra Loney	Board Member	April 2002	Sandra joined our Board 2002. As a former tenant herself, she wants the best for our tenants. As a Board member she has seen lots of improvements to our services over the years. Sandra enjoys being on the Board and is a mentor to new members. Sandra is also on the Board for Community Links.
Mairi Maclean	Board Member	August 2013	Mairi has been on our Board since 2013. She enjoys being part of the community and likes that she is a Board member with Paisley Housing. Mairi has gained lots of knowledge about what each department does although still feels she learns something new at the meetings. Mairi says staff are all so professional and she feels privileged to be on the Board.
Drew Mason	Board Member	June 2021	Drew is a private residential landlord and owner of a property investment and property development company. He has a passion for providing high quality accommodation, together with an exemplary service to support the needs of the end users. Drew recently completed an HNC in Construction Management and is keen to expand his knowledge and experience whilst assisting both the community and the board with his expertise. Drew joined our Board in 2021.
Neil McCall	Board Member	October 2021	Neil completed 17 years of military service in 2016, and moved into business, consultancy, and property investment. He is a private landlord in Renfrewshire with an ethos of providing good quality accommodation sustainably at a fair rate. Neil has an interest in local architecture and is keen to make a contribution to improving the quality of accommodation in the local area.
Laura Clark	Board Member	November 2021	Laura has over a decades worth of experience in social housing. She started her career off as a Graduate Management Trainee with Glasgow Housing Association stepping into various roles and areas of the business. After working as a Housing Officer within GHA she moved to Trust Housing Association and worked within Business Improvement covering areas such as the ARC, complaints, internal/external reporting, staff training and service redesign. For a number of years she has been working in housing management covering general needs and older people housing within the North Lanarkshire area. Laura is keen to pull from her past and current experience to learn from and assist the local community and board going forward.
Emmanuel Dufegha	Board Member	April 2022	Emmanuel possesses valuable knowledge, experience and skills acquired through academic, managerial positions, training and service to people. He also enjoys learning through taking on new challenges to contribute positively towards the achievements of the core values of any organisation, hence his acceptance to serve on the board of Paisley Housing Association.
Tina Russell	Board Member	May 2022	Tina has 3 children and is a happily married stay at home mum. On occasions she volunteers in the Salvation Army charity shop in Paisley which she finds fun. She has been a tenant of PHA for just over 3 years and joined the board to have a better understanding on how the association works and to be able to give her views on how she sees a community can and could be managed. She likes to be able give her views no matter how big or small and hopes in the future to meet amazing people along her new journey and become friends with all the members of the board.
Elaine Templeton	Board Member	September 2022	Elaine has over 25 years experience in hospitality and human resources management working with companies such as Travelodge, Whitbread, Accor Hotels and is now the joint owner of TasteBuds Paisley, the award winning cafe and catering business on Lawn Street in the town centre. Elaine is very passionate about improving Paisley and making the town the very best it can possibly be. She is very involved as a board member of Paisley First, the town centre business improvement district, and has been for the last 4 years. She is very keen to use her skills and knowledge and to learn more about the social housing sector to benefit the whole of the town. She has an BA (Hons) Hospitality Management from Robert Gordon University and post graduate CIPD in Human Resource Management.