Wembley Creative Saturday Market invitation

Due to the information being somewhat confusing (see comments below)  I have deleted the original post and reproduce here the original email (unedited) from Regenovate.  I suggest you email them for any additional information.

Interested in running your own market stall?
Got a creative idea you'd like to try out?
We wanna hear from you!
Small Business opportunities at Creative Wembley Market

Creative Wembley Market is now taking applications for their Creative Wembley Market Initiative. The program offers participants the opportunity to trade at their weekend market at discounted rates for a 4 month period.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Delivered by Regenovate CIC and Brent Ward Working the project seeks to engage with local creative individuals, businesses  and community groups to promote innovative and alternative retail concepts on Wembley High Street.

We are particularly keen to support but not exclusively:
Residents from in and around Wembley High Street
Those who have a unique and creative product
Those who have had considerably creative input in their product
Those seeking to start their own small creative business
Those wishing to trial the response to their product
Those selling alternative food offerings / who have grown their own food

For more information please visit WWW.regenovatecic.co.uk where you can download our information pack or feel free to contactMark Banfield at info@regenovatecic.co.uk
Copyright © * 2015|* *|Regenovate CIC *, All rights reserved.

Our mailing address is:
info@regenovatecic.co.uk

60 firefighters tackle fire in Wembley recycling depot

From the scene of the fire (Photo London Fire Brigade)

From London Fire Brigade

Eight fire engines and around 60 firefighters and officers were called to tackle a fire at a single storey warehouse used as a recycling depot on Hannah Close off Great Central Way in Wembley during the early hours of this morning.

Around 50 tonnes of rubbish was destroyed in the blaze.

Crews from Wembley, Park Royal, Hendon, Acton and surrounding fire stations were at the scene.
Station Manager Claiton Murray who attended the incident said:

Thankfully there were no injuries and because the location of the fire was on an industrial estate it wasn't near enough to roads or housing for the smoke to cause any disruption. Crews have worked hard to stop the fire spreading to other buildings.

The Brigade was called at 0214 and the fire was under control at 0654 but crews are expected to be at the scene for some time.

The cause of the fire is under investigation.

Inspiring Groundwork project on climate proofing social housing landscapes - ideas for Brent?

As we have learnt from the new park on the Chalkhill Estate green spaces can have a transformative impact on how people feel about their local areas and the social relationships on the estate. This video about work being carried out jointly by Groundwork and Hammersmith and Fulham Council  on three of their social housing estates shows how mitigation of the effects of climate change through  quite small measures can have a similar impact.

There are lessons here for Brent Housing Partnership in terms of their existing estates as well as for Brent Planners when examinining the many redevelopment proposals.  I hope there are people here in Brent who will get excited about the possibilities.

Upcoming events at Preston Community Library

News from Preston Community Library Hub (Carlton Avenue East, Wembley, HA9 8PL - Preston Road Tube)

Our August quiz, written by Shelagh and Vanita, is in The Preston, 161 Preston Rd, at 7.30 this Monday, 15 August. The quiz will start promptly at 8. Next month's quiz will be on Monday 19 September.

This Saturday's film at 7.30pm is  a 1937 classic  We also have a children's  Disney matinee at 11am on Sunday 14 August .Next week's film, on Saturday 20 August, the last of this summer's programme, will be a Colombian drama (15).



This coming Monday, 15 August, Ozkan Gedik from the College of NW London's Talking Therapies Service will be talking in the library about treatments for problems such as depression and anxiety which are available to anyone registered with a Brent GP. The event is free, refreshments will be available, and people will be able to speak privately to Ozkan after the talk.

This week also sees our first Story Time sessions (see flyer above) for children aged 3-6 and 7-10. These sessions are from 3 - 4 pm in the library this Friday and Saturday, 12 / 13 August, and next Friday 19 August. The Summer Reading Challenge for children aged 4-10 continues in the library throughout this month, and it's not too late for children to join.

Our ESOL classes are taking a break until September, but Ray's IT classes for adults continue on Saturdays from 11-1. Booking is essential, so if you're interested please phone Ray Patel on 07799 953229. Our new Wednesday art class started  last week; if you want to join, either phone Trixi on 020 8904 4795, or just come to the library at 3pm on Wednesday. I'm also hoping that Samantha, whose classes were hugely popular last year, will be starting a new yoga class on Sunday mornings from September. If you're interested, please contact Samantha on 07801 697712.

Finally, The Silvertones, who were the highlight of our Christmas party, are playing another benefit for the library in The Windermere at 7.30 on Sunday 4 September. They were fantastic at Christmas, and we're very happy they've agreed to play for us again.

The library, of course, remains open on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. This means that we now have 22 shifts to fill every week - so if you want to help staff the library and keep it open, please get in touch. I hope to see lots of you in the weeks to come.
 

Brent proposes to combine Health Visitor and School Nurse services

A paper going to Cabinet on Monday proposes the procurement of a new 'joined up' 0-19 Health Visitor and School Nursing Service with a combined value of £6.6m.

Currently the Health Visitor and Family Nurse Service is provided by London North West Healthcare Trust and School Nursing by Central London NW Healthcare Trust.

There have been concerns, some of which I voiced in a delegation to Cabinet, about the lack of continuity between health visiting and school nursing, at the point where children start nursery. Early Years practitioners have found children arrive at nursery or reception with specific special needs that they haven't been informed about in advance.

One of the issues has been that engagement with health visitor services is not mandatory and that missed appointments are not followed up. Health Visitors are often the first people to become aware of a family's other needs. The paper LINK states: 

...The successful Provider will be required to demonstrate how their services and the staff teams employed will be pro-active and engage with families and their under 5s to support health needs and link into wider issues including housing, education, childcare, welfare and poverty. 

The service to be procured as outlined in this report will lead to the delivery of the Healthy Child Programme - the early intervention and prevention public health programme issued by the Department of Health which lies at the heart of universal services for children and their families. The early years are a crucial stage of life, and this service will provide an invaluable opportunity to identify families who are in need of additional support and children who are at risk of poor outcomes. 


To improve continuity across the services and age ranges, the Council is planning to combine health visiting and school nursing service so that professionals will be able to continue to work with the same children for a longer period of time rather than passing them to another service as they get 
older. This will improve the continuity for children and young people and their families. 

By commissioning these services together professionals will no longer be bound by the traditional age ranges of services, and both children and families can benefit by receiving support from the same professional for longer. It will also be expected to realise efficiencies through economies of scale and overhead and management costs. 

 The 'efficiencies' referred to in the last sentence are clearly something to scrutinise in the context of the impact of cuts on services but the joined up approach is something to be welcomed. The health of Under 5s was a matter of great concern in a report to Cabinet in January this year LINK.

There are an estimated 24,600 under 5s in Brent, an increase of 2,500 on 2010, but the rate of increase is expected to slow over the next few years. The resident population of 0-19 year olds is expected to increase by almost 10% over the next 5 years.

The new combined contract would start on April 1st 2017.

A Call to Europe: Human Rights for Refugees August 27th

A Demostration Called by: 

Help4Refugee Children, Syria Solidarity Campaign & Calais Action.

Sixty years ago, the Refugee Convention defined rights for refugees, and most countries signed up to it. The first principle was that refugees should be treated decently. A little later, the world refugee year of 1959-60 was an attempt to get counties to face up to their responsibilities.

Since then, the situation of refugees has got steadily worse. Today their rights are everywhere disregarded, eroded, and trampled on; governments think they can gain popularity by treating refugees in an inhuman way. We say that this is unacceptable. No one is illegal; no one is inhuman.

WE ARE SEEING A GENERAL DEHUMANISATION OF REFUGEES - AND WE DEMAND THAT THIS MUST STOP, AND THAT WE BEGIN TREATING THEM AS HUMANS, WITH THE SAME RIGHTS AS OUR OWN.

The countries of Europe in particular have been trying to evade acknowledging the basic humanity of refugees, and the rights which they should respect. They have deliberately avoided:

1. Their responsibility for the wars in Syria, Iraq, and vast areas of the Middle East which have caused people to flee;

2. Their continuing responsibility for ensuring a safe passage to Europe (in particular across the Mediterranean) for thousands of refugees, as though they had no duty to protect them. Thousands have drowned through a deliberate state policy of neglect.

Worse, once the refugees arrive in Europe, no country will accept them although by the terms of the Refugee Convention once arrived in Europe they can apply for asylum. (Their situation is viewed from a frankly racist perspective - as though they represent an army of foreigners aiming to pollute a pure white Europe.) There is an increasing drive to make life impossible for them wherever they are, closing down what refugee camps there are (particularly in France).

The refugees are housed in shocking, subhuman conditions such as the ‘Jungle’ camp at Calais, where they are constantly harassed by police and threatened with eviction by the State. Indeed, this camp (home to 7000 people and 500 (unaccompanied children) is now threatened with another demolition; which will rob these homeless people of the little they have. The camps already have almost no facilities and are run by hardworking overstretched volunteers relying on donations, not official agencies.

The people who have reached the camps, after difficult and dangerous journeys, have clearly not done it from choice. Our failure to treat them with decency and humanity shames us.
We are demonstrating to demand a new start, based on respect and human principles.

TREAT REFUGEES AS HUMAN BEINGS WITH FULL RIGHTS, ON EVERY STEP OF THEIR ROAD!

Theresa May’s grammar school plan would brand many children as failures - Green Party

Back to the future with the Tories

Theresa May’s plans to allow new grammar schools would create an unfair education system which leaves too many young children branded as failures, the Green Party has warned.

There is clear evidence LINK that selective schools primarily benefit the already advantaged, while failing to serve the needs of those who most need support and assistance.

The Green Party is committed to fighting inequality and believes the Prime Minister’s plans to lift the ban on grammar schools, reported in the Sunday Telegraph LINK, would create a more divisive education system.

Vix Lowthion, Green Party spokesperson for Education, said grammar schools do not increase social mobility.

She said:

Selection based on academic performance in 11 plus style tests will not be based on raw ability but on which pupils are coached to pass these tests.

And coaching costs money and time and that only certain families will have.

Research by the Sutton Trust LINK found less than 3% of children at grammar schools are entitled to free school meals, while in contrast almost 13% did not have state-school backgrounds, coming mostly from independent schools.

Ms Lowthion, a secondary school teacher on the Isle of Wight, added:

Selective schools would condemn the vast majority of our 11-year-olds to feeling like they are academic failures before their high school career has even begun.

Grammar schools are not the solution. High expectations and the best education for every single child is what education policy must be.

The Green Party wants to see current grammar schools integrated into the comprehensive structure to make a fairer education system.

Natalie Bennett, Green Party leader, said schools should prepare children for more than just exams, and joined calls for May to rethink the plans.

This is not a positive sign of the direction of education policy. We had hoped to see an end to Gove’s era of ministerial whim and outdated ideas of the purpose of education, when the ideology of privatisation dominated.

I speak in many schools, universities and colleges, and I know that young people feel failed by a system that prepares them for exams, not life, and that is being increasingly scarred by cuts to funding for essential provision.

Brent Council to take over maintenance of historic Old St Andrew's Churchyard

The churchyard at Old St Andrew's Church in Kingsbury has been cleared of vegetation, including brambles and elder, which had covered and concealed many of the graves for years. Apart from revealing many fascinating headstones it also reveals considerable damage to graves including fallen headstones, subsidence of graves and gaping holes in some vaults.

Old St Andrew's is Brent's only Grade 1 listed building and the oldest building in the borough dating from before 1100.  The graves appear more recent but are hard to date because inscriptions on the oldest headstones have been worn away.

According to the incumbent, Father Jason Rendell, the last burial in the churchyard was in 2003.

The churchyard includes many fine yew trees and is at its best in the Spring when snowdrops, violets and bluebells can be found.  It is amazingly peaceful for a site surrounded by suburban  development and where yesterday the roars from Wembley Stadium could be heard.

A proposal to close the churchyard for future burials has been tabled with the closing date for comments tomorrow. Parishioners who have reserved their places will be unaffected by the closure. (Details below)

Once the churchyard is closed, a process that may take a year, Brent Council will take over the maintenance. An electronic survey of the graves  is to be undertaken which will record the position, condition and inscription of each grave. There will also be a tree survey and self-seeded trees will be removed opening up the churchyard to more light.

The churchyard is overcrowded and there was a proposal in the 1930s to open a lawn cemetery nearby on ground now occupied by the Birchen Grove allotments, Welsh Environmental Study Centre and the Garden Centre. As far as I can ascertain that site is still consecrated ground. The chapel for the proposed cemetery still stands and houses Energy Solutions.

I sometimes visit the churchyard with primary classes and it is interesting how they overcome initial fear  to become fascinated by the social history recorded by the graves including infant mortality, references to the two world wars and the verses on many of the graves. Those children whose first language is not English can be confused.  'Is there really someone sleeping under there?' one asked me pointing to a huge stone slab.  There follows a lesson about euphemisms and an eager search for examples.

Influenced by the peace and the surroundings children often initiate profound discussions about death and religion. Some children who are refugees from conflict open up about their experience and their family losses.

The churchyard closure notice:

Representations should be sent to Coroners and Burials Team, Ministry of Justice, 102 Petty France, London SW1H 9AJ quoting Reference OPR/075/333