Fundraising campaign for St Catherine’s Wickford

Urgent work is required to the Tower of St. Catherine’s Church Wickford as a result of ground movement caused by the long dry summer. This resulted in subsidence of the foundations in the North West corner of the church which caused a number of large cracks to appear in the walls and some stonework to fall. As a result, urgent safety and weather protection work costing £23,000 is required followed by the investigations needed to design a long-term solution to the problem.

A fundraising campaign to raise an initial £23,000 has been launched, but this is only the beginning of a much longer project to effectively underpin the church in order to prevent the regular recurrence of the issue. This first stage of the project will involve: removing or temporarily fixing loose stonework; undertaking temporary roof repairs and loose filling of walls for weather protection; removal of loose internal plasterwork; temporary covering of affected windows; and the reinstatement of the lightning conductor.

"Our churches are seeking to be at the heart of the community in Wickford but also need the support of the wider community in the town, particularly as we address the problems of subsidence at St Catherine's Church and the expense of maintaining this much-loved community building given the effects of significant climate change."

“Our recent consultation exercise in the Parish revealed that the churches in Wickford and Runwell are seen as contributing to the sense of community and are valued both for the support they bring to others and as centres for peace and prayer which provide a sense of Christian presence. Many local people have been baptised or married at St Catherine’s or have family members commemorated in the churchyard. For all these reasons, we believe many locally will want to support this campaign to ensure that this much-loved community building is repaired and secured for the future.”    

Our fundraising campaign begins with a series of fundraising events involving Ladybirds Song Group, Rumatica Ukulele Group and a Quiz Night:

•       Ladybirds Song Group: Saturday 21 January, 7.30 pm, St Andrew’s Church (11 London Road, Wickford SS12 0AN). The Ladybirds Song Group sing all over South Essex performing popular songs from the 1950s to the present. No tickets required. A retiring collection will be taken.

•       Quiz Night: Saturday 4 February, 7.00 pm, 1st Runwell Scout Hall (Runwell Gardens SS11 7DW). £5.00 p/head. Tables of up to eight. Bring your own snacks & drinks (Tea and Coffee available). To book a table email StCatherinesQuiz@hotmail.com. Street parking in Church End Lane.

•       Rumatica Ukulele Group: Saturday 11 March, 3.00 pm, St Catherine’s Church (120 Southend Road, Wickford SS11 8EB). A local band playing and singing a wide range of popular songs including rock, pop, country, swing, rock and roll. Enjoy a cream tea afterwards in the church hall.

Those wishing to contribute to this campaign, can send cheques made out to Wickford and Runwell Parochial Church Council to The Rectory, 120 Southend Road, Wickford SS11 8EB or phone 07803 562329 / email jonathan.evens@btinternet.com for the bank details to use for a bank transfer.

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Rumatica Ukelele Band - I Saw Her Standing There.

BasildON Creative People and Places

 

BasildON Creative People and Places is a radical, new cultural programme for people living, working and socialising in Basildon borough.

The mission is simple; to unleash the creative spirit that runs through the veins of our community and provide more opportunities for local people to commission, create and participate in cultural activity in Basildon.

They say: 

"Most importantly, BasildON Creative People & Places is all about YOU driving and deciding what cultural activity YOU want to see on your doorstep.

Together, we can uplift the town centre with bright and beautiful murals. We can turn our public squares into dance floors. We can even transform vacant shops into music hubs…

Nothing is impossible, if we all work together!

We have three years and £1.7million to make this happen, so let’s get cracking!"

There are five core projects that sit within the BasildON Creative People & Places Programme, which you can read about here. However, what is even more important is that YOU can have a genuine say in what these projects look like. Join their mailing list or check out the latest opportunities for you to get involved as an artist, volunteer or resident.

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Depeche Mode - Just Can't Get Enough.

Measuring National Well-being

The latest review of the domains and measures of national well-being have recently been published and can be found by following the link below:

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/wellbeing/measuring-national-well-being/domains-and-measures---may-2013/review-of-domains-and-measures-of-national-well-being.html

This article is the latest in the ongoing refinement of measures from the Measuring National Well-being programme and ONS would like your feedback.

Key changes include:

• Addition of five new measures reflecting: arts and culture, participation in sport, access to services, satisfaction with accommodation and household recycling.
• Removal of three measures namely satisfaction with leisure time, trust in parliament and air pollutants PM10.
• Renaming the 'Individual well-being' as 'Personal well-being’
• Making the need for measures to be available for the UK ‘aspirational’, to prevent important components of well-being being excluded on the basis of data availability.

Feedback is particularly welcomed on:

• Changes made to the criteria used to select the measures.
• The change in domain name from ‘individual well-being’ to ‘personal well-being’.
• The measures which have been added.
• The measures which have been removed.
• Any suggestions for further variants on the measures which could be more appropriate.

The next release of measures is scheduled for Autumn 2013. In order for feedback to be incorporated into this next release, responses are required by Weds 31st July.

Send feedback to the following email or postal address:

Email: nationalwell-being@ons.gsi.gov.uk

Measuring National Well-being, Room 2.164,
Office for National Statistics,
Government Buildings,
Cardiff Road,
Newport,
South Wales, NP10 8XG.

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The Specials - A Message To You Rudy.

Government's proposed relaxation of planning laws

The Ilford Recorder reports that councillors from all parties in the London Borough of Redbridge have united to oppose the government’s proposed relaxation of planning laws:


'Members at Thursday’s meeting of the full council in Redbridge Town Hall, High Road, Ilford, voted unanimously to resist the proposed changes.

Cllr Shoaib Patel, cabinet member for planning, said: “Planning permission is not in place to reduce workers, it is in place to protect people from unwanted development.

“It’s a myth to think that planning laws hold back development or the economy.”

In September, the coalition government announced plans to allow people to build larger house extensions and make shop and office expansions and housing developments easier.

A consultation is now underway and several local authorities, including the Greater London Authority, have already voiced their opposition to relaxing planning regulations.'

If you share the significant concerns held by members of the Seven Kings & Newbury Park Resident’s Association at the Government’s proposal for a three-year relaxation of planning rules on extending homes and business premises, we encourage you to register your views as part of the current Government consultation. Click here to register your views before 24 December 2012.

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The Clash - I Fought The Law.
 

Transforming Presence

Yesterday I was at Transforming Presence: Time to Talk, a well organised diocesan consultation on the strategic priorities for the Diocese of Chelmsford over the next fifteen years. These are intended to begin a continuing and widespread discussion of how we better become the church God wants us to be, and are better able to serve God’s world.

We discussed our best experiences of church, three words for the essentials of Church (I came up with creative, Christ-shaped community), what inspired and challenged us in the Transforming Presence document, and created headlines and news stories for the Church as we imagine it may be in 2025. While the document recognises some of the challenges which the Diocese faces, the event was predominantly upbeat meaning that my suggestion of 'Survival is success' as a headline wasn't picked up by the group of which I was part. To give the group their due though, we did grapple with real issues in the headline we eventually chose - 'Church accepts equality - 40 years too late!'

The strategic priorities identified by Transforming Presence - inhabiting the world distinctively, evangelizing effectively, and serving with accountability - are valuable but do seem to need some further unpacking or development.

One point that was particularly well made on our table was that it is hard to identify anything that is distinctively Christian about the way that we live both in the sense that our lives are often little different to those of others around us and also in the sense that most aspects of the way we aspire to live as Christians can also be found in other wisdom/faith traditions. The question to be addressed then is in what sense can it be said that these things are distinctively Christian if they are also found outside of Christianity? It may be that we would be better to speak of inhabiting the world ‘Christianly’ (if such a word exists), as opposed to distinctively.

Additionally, the document, in my view, needs to place a stronger emphasis on the practical outworking of faith in all forms of social action. At present, social action only seems to feature as an aspect of serving with accountability and should be given greater prominence, particularly in the light of many current mission initiatives which combine evangelism and social action.

My major concern with the document and its linked paper, Transforming Leadership, is that the analysis of the structural issues faced by the Diocese and Church of England is inadequate. The talk is of eradicating the sense of a ‘them’ and ‘us’ divide between parishes and diocese, where the diocese is seen as part of the Church of England’s top down, hierarchical, bureaucratic and, increasingly, managerial structures. My view is that this is a smoke-screen that we (priests and parishes) use to defend our individualism which in turn is fostered by structures which give exceptionally high levels of autonomy to us.

Those who have worked in generally hierarchical organisations will acknowledge immediately that the Church of England, while having its own hierarchy, is not a traditional hierarchical organisation where the decisions of those at the top of the organisation are simply implemented by those below. The hierarchy in the Church of England have little direct control over priests and parishes because incumbents have held the freehold of their parishes and each parish is essentially its own autonomous charity. This situation is only minimally changed for priests by common tenure and means that priests and parishes can effectively ignore the hierarchy of the Church should they wish to do so with, in comparison to most other organisations, minimal comeback. This independence and autonomy is, in my opinion, highly valued by many of us (priests and parishes) and we then fervently resist changes which would encroach on or limit this independence and autonomy.

It can then be, as part of seeking to preserve this independence and autonomy, that some come to oppose so-called bureaucratic or managerial methods which have the effect both of increasing accountability and decreasing scope for individualism. Managerial methods are decried as adopting the methods of the ‘world’ which don’t apply to the Church but, it seems to me, that our valuing of independence and autonomy without accountability is as much an adoption of ‘worldly’ values because it is an expression of the individualism which characterises modernism and consumerism instead of the communitarianism which should characterise the Christian faith.

While accountability features among the strategic priorities and within Transforming Leadership, I am not confident that this tendency towards individualism and autonomy fostered by the existing structures of the Church is adequately identified or addressed. While this is clearly a provocative contribution to the continuing and widespread discussion that Transforming Presence initiates, and a contribution with which many of my colleagues may disagree, I hope that we can have an honest and open discussion of strategic priorities, approaches and structures and that these views can be heard and understood within that process. 

For other views, see Banksy here and the twitter stream for the event.

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David Bowie - Heroes.

Andrew Lansley, are you listening?

I've sent the following comment to Andrew Lansley's listening exercise on his NHS reforms:

"I have fundamental concerns about these proposed changes to the NHS and I think Andrew Lansley needs to go back to the drawing board.

For example, I am concerned that proposals to make competition the priority within the NHS would undermine our health service. The NHS should focus on cooperating to provide quality patient care, not on competition. The role of the regulator, "Monitor", should reflect this.

It can be demonstrated that the introduction of competition in the provision of public services, such as the tendering out of Local Authority services, has not led to cost savings, greater efficiencies or improvements in services but instead has resulted in reduced levels of service, waste of resources and increased bureaucracy. The ethos of the 'market' contradicts the ethos of 'public service' and, if introduced, will inevitably erode the government’s “duty to provide” a comprehensive health service.

Dropping this duty would erode the foundations of the NHS and would lead to the 'cherry picking' by private companies of NHS services. Such “cherry picking” must be fully ruled out, and the mechanism for preventing it must be clearly established."

You can send your own comment by clicking here.

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Athlete - Wires.

c4m webpage update (39)

There are a number of interesting new posts on the commission4mission webpage beginning with photos of the first exhibition to be hosted in our ongoing exhibition space at All Saints West Ham. Sergiy Shkanov is our newest member to join and be profiled. He has also added worked to the West Ham exhibition. Two posts (here and here) highlight forthcoming exhibitions which will feature work by c4m members - Colin Burns, Valerie Dean, Sarah Ollerenshaw and Peter Webb - together with the Northwood & Northwood Hill Art stns which featured my meditations. Finally, the latest post features our response to the recent Arts Council England consultation.

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Ben Harper and Relentless7 - Shimmer & Shine.

Continuing, detailed & effective consultation

This is my letter, published this week, by the Ilford Recorder about Seven Kings library:

The return of a library to High Road is a cause for real celebration in Seven Kings. We hope that it will become a real focal point at the centre of community activities and a boost to the vibrancy of the High Road itself. Progress has been made because of effective consultation by the Council with the local community, supported and facilitated by local councillors, and we look for this to continue beyond this election year, both in relation to the library and for other much needed community facilities in Seven Kings. The return of a library to Seven Kings could either be the first act in an ongoing redevelopment of Seven Kings or a flash in the pan. Continuing detailed and effective consultation with the local community will be the key to ensuring that the former, rather than the latter, is what happens in the area.

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Corinne Bailey Rae - I'd Do It All Again.

Crossrail Corridor Area Action Plan Community Forum meeting

Next Wednesday, 21st October 2009 at 7.30pm, St Johns Seven Kings is hosting a Community Forum on the Crossrail Corridor Area Action Plan.

All are welcome at a meeting where the agenda will include:

• A joint Planning/Licensing Approach to Tackling the Concentration of Takeaways and Night Cafes in Seven Kings (with Alan Drake, Head of Licensing);
• Preferred Policy Options: Retail – Protection of local shops; Employment Opportunities – Floorspace for start-up; Businesses and protection of existing employment; Housing Target, Mix and Density; Building Heights and Design; Open Space and Greening the High Road; Community and Social Infrastructure (education, health, community and leisure facilities); Transport and Car parking; and Sustainability/Decentralised Energy; and
• Next Steps.

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Michael McDermott - I Wanna Know Why.

Have your say about local libraries

Libraries are important places in our communities. Through them, residents have access to: books and information; culture and leisure activities for people of all ages; and opportunities to improve their level of basic skills in areas like English and ICT all within a neutral, local setting.

Around 20% of people in Redbridge regularly borrow items from libraries. An improvement plan is being written to establish what else can be done to encourage all residents to use and benefit from library services.

To make sure the ideas in the plan and the services and resources libraries provide are relevant to Redbridge’s diverse communities, Redbridge Council need to hear our ideas on how libraries should be improved. We can highlight the top three things we’d like to see in our local libraries as part of a new consultation to help shape future library improvements.

The consultation runs until 31 August and forms part of the development of a Library Improvement Plan for Redbridge which will outline how libraries in the Borough will develop to ensure people continue to visit and value them in the future.

Cllr Alan Weinberg, Cabinet Member for Leisure, said, “Our libraries are very well used and offer a high quality range of books and other services to residents but it is important for us to make sure we continue to improve our libraries in the future, to ensure they are able to support the borough’s diverse communities. I would encourage people to tell us what they’d like to see improve in their local library.”

Residents are being asked for their top three priorities for libraries as well as any other suggestions or comments which could improve the service. All responses will be considered and fed into the Improvement Plan to be published later this year.

The consultation leaflet will be available in all of the Borough’s libraries from next week and can be completed online now at Redbridge i.

Click here for information on the Take Action for Seven Kings campaign for a static library in Seven Kings.

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Athlete - In The Library.

Crossrail Corridor Area Action Plan (2)

Here is a summary of the comments made during the recent consultation event at St Johns Seven Kings on the Crossrail Corridor Area Action Plan:

• The Council has consulted on several ‘Action Plans’. Although residents and community groups are committed to consultation, the creation of Action Plans that do not result in action and change does lead to cynicism amongst local residents;
• The High Road has been run down for the last few generations, the Area Action Plan is 15 years too late;
• The area looks generally run down and needs better street cleaning; trees/flower displays;
• Important to have evidence to support need for new community facilities, so not simply a wish list;
• Joined up working is crucial - Highways, TfL, Crossrail, the PCT, Education and Leisure Services need to be fully consulted at all stages of the plan preparation so that work is complementary and not contradictory;
• Improve pedestrian crossing points along High Road, making safer at key points such as outside Seven Kings station and Barley Lane junction;
• Seven Kings centre is dominated by too many take-aways, no traditional cafes or meeting places for local residents;
• Have specific policies for different town centres and different parts of High Road, e.g. for building height, retail use;
• On-street car parking often obstacle and difficult for cyclists to negotiate;
• Car parking should be delivered as part of new developments;
• Important to encourage walking and use of bikes, this would be best achieved if there were more local shops and community facilities in the immediate area;
• Only one realistic option for swimming pool - current site;
• Tree planting would improve the look and feel of High Road - can be in tubs rather than planted if easier to manage with utilities infrastructure;
• Lorry Park Planning Brief has many good points, but need to ensure development is of a high standard of design as location next to railway track may not be ideal;
• New developments should be a high quality design;
• Need for a library should be highlighted and made clear in Plan. Recent library petition is evidence that there is a need for library;
• Would like to see a policy in place to allow change use in some cases to enable community facilities and services to be delivered in vacant retail outlets;
• Also look at using existing community building, such as schools and faith buildings for the delivery of additional local community services/facilities;
• Ensure all comments and responses to consultation are published and made transparent;
• Landowners, such as Tesco’s, should be consulted and any representations received should be published and made transparent;
• Police should be consulted, as they may require a new police station in the area.

If you would like to make any comments please email jennifer.millard@redbridge.gov.uk.

Individual comments and feedback forms are also welcomed and can be returned to the Council using the following freepost address: Crossrail Corridor Area Action Plan London Borough of Redbridge Freepost RSLR - JACE - HSUG Ilford IG1 1DD. You can also email at dpd@redbridge.gov.uk or fax at 020 8708 2062.

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Ben Harper - Excuse me Mr !!!!!!

Crossrail Corridor Area Action Plan

We hosted the Council's Planning and Regeneration Service yesterday for a consultation meeting on preparing an Area Action Plan (AAP) for the High Road, running from the eastern edge of Ilford Town Centre to the Borough boundary with Barking & Dagenham in Chadwell Heath.

The Area Action Plan will set out a planning framework for the area and aims to improve the overall character and quality of the High Road, and maximise the potential benefits of the future Crossrail stations at Seven Kings, Goodmayes and Chadwell Heath.

Consultation is underway on the issues, opportunities and options as set out in the Consultation Leaflet and runs until Friday 19th June. If you are interested, the consultation leaflet is available at the Council’s One Stop Shop, all local libraries or on the Council's website, Redbridge
http://www.redbridge.gov.uk/cms/environment__planning/planning_and_regeneration/planningpolicy/ldfpage/crossrail_corridor_aap.aspx

For more information please contact Jennifer Millard or Ian Rae in the Planning Policy Team on Tel 020 8708 2073 or 020 8708 2072. Alternatively you can email comments to dpd@redbridge.gov.uk.

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Athlete - You Got The Style.

Crossrail Corridor Area Action Plan consultation meeting

Following initial discussions with community and church groups and other residents in March, as part of Meadowcroft Griffin's study, Redbridge Council will shortly begin the formal consultation to inform the content of the Area Action Plan for the High Road. This will take place for six weeks between Monday 11 May 2009 and Friday 19th June 2009. Please note the Area Action Plan has been re-named the 'Crossrail Corridor Area Action Plan' (formerly 'Roman Road').

A consultation meeting has been organised as part of this Issues & Options stage consultation which will be in the Fellowship Room at St John's Seven Kings (St John's Road, IG2 7BB) on Wednesday 20th May from 8.00pm. The meeting will involve a presentation followed by a question & answer session.

Meadowcroft Griffin Architects are in the final stages of preparing the Urban Design Study for the High Road which will help inform the Area Action itself, and explore some of the issues and options set out in the Consultation Leaflet. Jennifer Millard will update us on the findings of MGA's study at the consultation meeting.

A copy of the consultation leaflet has been included in the papers for the next Area 5 Committee meeting. These can be found by clicking here and the consultation papers can be found at item 7.

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Dreadzone - Little Britain.

TASK Newsletter No. 14

Welcome to our latest TASK e-newsletter as the sun shines and we move towards spring. As ever, there is a huge amount going on so please read this as a thank you to all our volunteers, and as a set of summary headlines.

Seven Kings Library

This was undoubtedly our big campaign of 2008, and efforts continue to develop permanent library provision in the area, as demanded by residents from all parts of the community. Meanwhile, though, we are generating valuable additional outreach services for local people, to include a 'beefed up' mobile service and regular family reading events at St. John's Church.

A regular programme of children's Storytelling sessions is now happening at St John's Seven Kings on a monthly basis. Future dates include Friday 13th March; Wednesday 1st April; Friday 24th April; Wednesday 13th May; Friday 5th June; Wednesday 24th June; Friday 17th July; Wednesday 5th August; Friday 28th August; Wednesday 16th September; Friday 9th October; Wednesday 28th October; Friday 20th November; and Wednesday 9th December. The times of these Storytelling sessions will be: Fridays - 11.30am to 12pm; and Wednesdays - 2.00-2.30pm.

A book group is also being started. Intended as quite a casual set up, without set questions or structured feedback and just an open ended discussion about how each person responded to the book. It will meet about four times a year and the first book to be discussed will be Oh Pure and Radiant Heart by Lydia Millet. The group will meet to discuss this book on Thursday 23rd April at 8pm. The venue is to be confirmed but will probably be at St John's. The group is open to anyone who wants to come along and for more details, contact Huw Jacob on: huw.jacob@gmail.com.

The next Library Services Coffee morning at St John's is being planned for 11.00am on Wednesday 8th April and will feature a talk on gardening by Nick Dobson. Finally, for the moment, an Evening of Poetry featuring Tim Cunningham and Naomi Foyle will be happening on Monday 27th April at 7.00pm at St John's as part of the Redbridge Book and Media Festival. Tickets are just £2.

Money for Westwood Recreation Ground

Good news- funding has been secured by the Council to allow for an upgrade to play facilities at Westwood Recreation Ground, on Meads Lane. The sum, thought to be around £60 000, will allow for an upgrade to the old school style play equipment, and officers are consulting with the community on how it might best be spent.

TASK have offered some opening thoughts on the desirability of imaginative free style play kit, maybe using the same kind of interesting and stylish designs now being installed at Valentines Park, and suggested leisure staff talk first to the young audience - and their families - who we hope will make good use of it.

The hope is that consultation can happen fast over the spring, allowing action in time for this summer's peak use season. If you have any thoughts on this development, do please address them direct to Leisure Officer, Edward Smith, at Edward.Smith@redbridge.gov.uk, or by phone to 020 8 708 3745, mentioning you are responding to a call for input from TASK.

As we go to press, we have also just heard that there will be a public consultation meeting on Thursday March 26th, starting at 7pm at Farnham Green School. All local residents are welcome so do please let your family, friends and neighbours - and their kids - know so the borough can benefit from the widest possible pool of ideas.

(Yet) more consultation on the Roman Road

It seems like public authorities love to consult more and more often, and having made some input in January to a group looking at the design of urban high streets on behalf of London Mayor, Boris Johnson, we are now giving feedback on a much more specific project aimed at regenerating the Roman Road- basically the road out of Ilford to Romford, covering the entirety of run down Seven Kings High Road. The local press have made much of this new action plan, and we are hopeful too that with political will and funding support, real advances can be made.

Our initial points are summarised below:

• although we are committed to consultation and action for change, the creation of Action Plans that don't result in action does over time lead to the building up of cynicism amongst local people;
• local people strongly associate with the High Road but think it has been run down over generations;
• currently it has a limited and inadequate shopping base dominated by too many takeaways;
• a mixed economy is needed along the High Road; we need a greater variety of retail outlets and community facilities/organisations with a new local library as the major priority;
• introducing this mixed economy may involve changing usage in some instances to enable community services to be delivered from what are currently retail outlets and/or using existing community building (such as schools and faith community buildings) for the delivery of local community services;
• new developments should be high quality which includes environmentally friendly and aesthetically pleasing;
• equivalent parking to that which is currently available should be delivered in new developments in order to sustain business levels for local traders;
• encouraging walking and use of bikes will be best achieved by locating community facilities locally. When libraries and post offices are more than one mile away most people will use cars to get to them; locate these and other community facilities locally and many more people will walk/cycle;
• attention should be paid to enhancing local heritage, where it exists, and enhancing awareness of that heritage. Public art could play a part in doing so;
• the area looks generally run down and needs: better street cleaning; trees/flower displays; enhancing of shop frontages; aesthetic new developments; and public art;
• the area in front of Seven Kings station is dangerous because it is used as a cut through; pedestriansing the area would be an option;
• although the railway is a major barrier, there would be little benefit to building more pedestrian crossings over the railway. Attention should be paid to traffic congestion caused by limited road crossings over the railway.

Special thanks are due to Jonathan Evens for setting things up and taking a bold lead on this project.

Blood and guts on Cambridge Road

Residents on Cambridge Road have been having a tough time recently, with a spate of violent incidents, racist taunting and anti-social behaviour coming from tenants of two rented houses on the street. Despairing residents contacted local councillors and TASK, who, after hours of feverish email exchanges with cabinet member Cllr Vanessa Cole, council staff and the local safer neighbourhoods police team managed to get the tenants moved on. Overall, it was a good team effort that worked on this occasion, but not before time, and with some evident service lapses we need to learn from. The real worry is that these tenants will simply be shuffled to a new location, possibly even locally, where they will reproduce the violence and mayhem once again. This cannot happen and TASK hope that we can all learn lessons, and develop practical strategies and actions, that allow other residents in other streets to benefit from much more rapid responses to displace this kind of offensive behaviour.

It is an issue that is bound to come up at our next Area 5 meeting at 7.15pm on Monday 23 March, at Barley Lane School, which majors on crime and policing. All major players will be there and it really has never been more important to come along.

Next walkabout date

The next community walkabout is scheduled to happen on Friday April 24 starting at 0900 from outside Goodmayes station heading towards Seven Kings station. It is designed to get local residents to join council officers, the police and councillors to pick up on, and immediately address, irksome streetscape issues like dumping, graffiti, public drinking, vandalism, highways, planning and licensing breaches. This time round rail operator national express will also be taking part, and can update us on what is happening at and around our station, the subject of radical and much needed upgrade throughout 2008.

Area 5 festival

Plans continue to develop a small community event at Barley Lane Recreation Ground this summer ahead of a much bigger festival idea for 2010 and a dedicated working group now meets regularly on this to work up a programme and schedule. Already confirmed are martial arts displays, dancing, community group stalls and sale of allotment products. With scope for lots more to happen.The hope is that this will run on Sunday September 20 from noon until 5pm The next working group meeting is on Wednesday April 1 at 7pm. The venue is Barley Lane Primary School.

Redbridge Green Fair is on Sunday 24 May

The biannual Redbridge green fair has now been running for the best part of 20 years and comes around again over the late May Bank Holiday weekend when Melbourne Fields - at Valentines Park - is appropriated for one day only as a giant community and environmental festival space. Its always an inspirational event, with live music, a solar powered cinema, brilliant food outlets and lots of community information and stalls. TASK are hoping to be one of the exhibitors and need volunteers to run our stall across the day. Please contact Chris at chrisconnelley@ntlworld to find out more and/or offer time.

That is it for now. Expect more soon. And do please share your news and stories with us at chrisconnelley@ntlworld.com or ahai@deloitte.co.uk.

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Over the Rhine - The World Can Wait.

Investing in London's suburbs

Community groups in Seven Kings have been contributing to two different Urban Design Studies looking at Seven Kings High Road among other suburban High Streets, so it is interesting to read today of a new report making the case for investing in London's suburban communities:

"Failing to invest in London’s suburbs to unlock their potential will make the whole of the capital less competitive in the future, according to a London Councils report issued today.

The report, 'Successful Suburbs: the case for investment in London’s suburban communities', highlights what a vital economic, social and environmental contribution suburbs make to the capital. It shows that investment in the suburbs now will put London in a very strong position when the capital emerges from the current economic downturn, and warns that if action is not taken the whole of London could suffer in the future, both financially and through loss of skills.

The suburbs are home to 60 per cent of London’s population and provide jobs that account for a third of the capital’s economic output. They have a highly skilled resident workforce, established industries and some thriving town centres. But further investment is needed to ensure they maintain their reputation as attractive places for residents and businesses.

The report sets out ways to boost investment in the suburbs. London Councils wants all levels of government to look at innovative ways of funding the plans, which should be led by local authorities. The proposals are based on making the most of underused resources and future investment in the suburbs, rather than transferring money away from inner London."

See http://www.londoncouncils.gov.uk/media/current/pressdetail.htm?pk=677 for a full copy of the report.

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Deacon Blue - Raintown.

Launch of the Inter-faith framework

On 21st July, FaithAction were present at the launch of the Inter-faith framework at Central Hall in Westminster.

The paper Face to Face and Side by Side: A framework for partnership in our multi faith society, was launched by Rt Hon Hazel Blears MP, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government.

The three core principles that underpin the Framework are as follows:

• Partnership: valuing the contributions made by partners and working together to increase their impact
• Empowerment: people and government, working together to make life better
• Choice: local communities deciding what works best for them

The framework is built up around four main building blocks. These are:

• Developing the confidence and skills to ‘bridge’ and ‘link’
• Shared spaces for interaction
• Structures and processes which support dialogue and social action
• Opportunities for learning which build understanding

Hazel Blears said at the launch: “Faith cannot be contained within a building ... There is a role for government, but what works best is when we work together with those committed individuals and organisations sharing our ambitions, energy, expertise and resources to achieve real and positive change within communities."

There are a number of practical steps in the framework. Of particular interest were:

• £7.5 million to be invested including a:‘Faiths in Action fund’ which will aim to support local activities and initiatives which have direct links to the four building blocks and a programme of investment in Regional Faith Forums for the next three years
• A cohesion delivery framework to guide local authorities on support dialogue and social action
• Regional Faith Links will be set up in the English regions by 2011 coordinated by Government Offices providing Local Authority Faith Leads
• CLG to produce a standardised version of a charter for excellence in public service delivery by faith communities.

Daniel Singleton, National Executive Director of FaithAction supports the framework:

"This Framework has been developed through a wide consultation process and is a demonstration of the benefits of connecting with a broad range of groups. FaithAction welcomes the framework and we note with interest the additional funding to support the work of Faith communities, as well as the efforts that CLG is leading to establish recognisable standards for the field, the charter for excellence.

Face to Face and Side by Side wets the appetite of those of us who want to see further government support for public services and social enterprise lead by Faith Based and Faith Inspired Organisations. It is the Third sector and the Faith Sector in particular which has the greatest reach in to what is commonly termed ‘hard to reach communities’. As service providers FaithAction members are on the front line of giving more people a share and a part to play in society today.”

To get a copy of the framework, go to http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/communities/facetofacesummary.

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Bruce Cockburn - Tokyo.

Inter-faith framework

This comes from FaithAction's newsletter:

Next Monday, the Rt Hon Hazel Blears MP will launch the Inter-faith framework at Central Hall in Westminster.

Hazel Blears, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, plans to develop a framework for inter-faith dialogue and social action that will become an intrinsic part of the way that public authorities work with communities. This follows the Prime Minister stating that he would like to see stronger inter faith dialogue where people find the common ground that exists between different religions and communities in the UK and the creation of local inter faith councils in every community.

The launch comes as a result of the Communities and Local Government consultation ‘“Face-to-Face and Side-by-Side”: A Framework for inter-faith dialogue and social action’. This report states that inter faith dialogue and social action can help to build positive relationships and break down barriers between people from different backgrounds, and that faith communities clearly have a valuable role to play as part of wider efforts to build cohesion and resilience within communities to extremism in all its forms.

The aim of the government is to enable faith communities to interact in two ways, Side by Side and Face to Face. The government defines them as follows:

• Face to face – Where the faith communities have a dialogue regarding their communities and values.
• Side by Side – where different faith communities can work together to deal with community change and extremism.

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Holmes Brothers - I Saw The Light.

Redbridge Conversation

The following has come from the Redbridge Faith Forum:

Redbridge Council has just launched the Redbridge Conversation. The Council is asking everyone who lives or works in the Borough to talk about the long-term improvements they want to see, and how the Council should pay for them.

Residents are being invited to take part in discussions and events across the Borough, and on the Council's website. It will be the biggest public consultation the Council has ever run.

The Council is asking members of the Faith Forum to consider hosting a Redbridge Conversation discussion with members of their own faith group. This could be a focus group with around 6-10 people or a presentation for a larger group such as a committee meeting or social gathering. The Council can provide speakers and other resources to make sure people taking part are properly informed and the discussion goes well.

The Council wants to make sure that voices from all parts of the Borough are heard in the Redbridge Conversation, which is why it has asked the Faith Forum for help. The results of the Redbridge Conversation will be sent to Councillors, who will be taking decisions that will shape the Borough's long-term future.

You can find out about all the Council's investment and funding options on Redbridge i, the Council's website.

For an alternative view on the Redbridge Conversation, see this week's Ilford Recorder. However, I would echo the plea of Ali Hai, from TASK, encouraging us to participate to ensure that Seven Kings is put on the map and that our priorities are recorded by the Council. He argues that the chances are that only the loudest voices will be heard and therefore we should play our part in making sure the Council hears the voice of Seven Kings.

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Peter Gabriel & Kate Bush - Don't Give Up.

Reform of care & support system

FaithAction report that Helen Steele of the Department of Health has written to them to discuss reform of the care and support system.

Reform of the care and support system will affect every adult in society and the DoH are keen to engage with as many people as possible and take the time to listen to what people have to say.

The DoH have asked FaithAction to raise the profile of this debate, both nationally and locally through the many networks that the FaithAction membership form and will be feeding them resources to gather views next month. Until then, they have uploaded Baroness Jane Campbell's recent speech to the resources section of their website for consideration.

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Michael McDermott - Mess Of Things.

Everyday heroes

FaithAction are looking with interest at the ‘Everyday Hero’ awards that the OTS in the Cabinet Office are funding and are keen to directly nominate people to them. They are seeking suggestions from all of their members as to who should win the ‘Everyday Hero’ awards.

You can nominate someone from your own project or from a project you have seen making an impact in your own community. Everyday Heroes are community activists, volunteers and campaigners, givers and carers, public service workers or good neighbours. The eligibility is very open, they are just keen that their short list is not those who would usually appear on such awards lists and do not receive such acclaim that they readily deserve.

For more information on how to nominate your everyday hero through FaithAction, please visit http://www.faithaction.net/news.php?id=709.

FaithAction are also keen to get your input on some of the wider issues that they are currently tackling. They want to ensure they are carrying an accurate voice for the sector and so shall be launching a number of online forums to follow the threads of discussion that began at the Money Well Spent conference.

They are asking for help by giving your opinions to help them carry the genuine message from each of the regions across the country. The first forum they have launched is simply asking the question: ‘What are the barriers faced by faith-based organisations when engaging in the commissioning process?’

They are keen to hear your experiences and suggestions and hope that participants will shape the discussions themselves. Your voice can be heard by contributing at: http://www.faithaction.net/forum.php.

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Eric Bibb - Shingle By Shingle.