Vauxhall City Farm and the Cooperative Council

This morning Leader of Lambeth Council Steve Reed paid a visit to Vauxhall City Farm to discuss issues affecting charities and voluntary groups, as part of the consultation process on the 'Cooperative Council'.

Along with local councillor Mark Harrison Steve met Farm director Linda Craig and chair Faith Boardman. The councillors learnt a lot about the good work the Farm does, some of the issues it is facing in the future, and how some of ideas in the Cooperative Council white paper might work in practice.

Pictured: Faith Boardman, Mark Harrison, Linda Craig and Steve Reed, next to the chicken coop (co-op?!)

Screen Lambeth - Archives Open Day

Screen Lambeth: the hidden worlds of film and home movies

Date: Saturday 25 September 2010
Time: 10am to 5pm
Venue: Lambeth Archives, Minet Library, 52 Knatchbull Road, London SE5 9QY
Cost: Free
Map of Minet Library

Lambeth Archives open day is an annual opportunity to get to know one of the less-well known but arguably one of the most fascinating of Lambeth Council's services. The council's archives at the Minet Library close to Myatt's Fields hold the historical records of the council and of local organisations and businesses, over 50,000 photographs, several thousand old maps, the local newspapers aback to the 1840s and much, much more, all providing a remarkable window into Lambeth's past.

Each year the archives open day takes a theme to allow it to present some of its riches. This years open day, 'Screen Lambeth', explores the local history of cinema going, film locations and home movies with a mixture of film screenings, illustrated talks, practical workshops and advice.
Hard on the heels of the BBC series, 'The Home Movie Roadshow' Lambeth Archives is assembling the experts to help owners of local home movies understand the importance of those old films tucked away in the attic.

David Cleveland, former director of the East Anglian Regional Film Archive, will be giving a talk in the morning on the value of home movies and how it is important to collect and preserve these as documents of life in the twentieth century. He will be illustrating his talk with extracts from some of the home movies from the 1950s that have been donated to Lambeth Archives.
If you have old movie footage that you are not sure what to do with, then bring it along to David's workshop in the afternoon when he will be offering advice on how to care for your old home movies.

There will be other film screenings and talks running through the day. For more details visit: http://www.lambeth.gov.uk/Services/LeisureCulture/LocalHistory/LambethArchivesOpenDay.htm

Freshview in Prince's - 22 October

Freshview is coming to Prince's and Oval wards on 22 October.

The scheme is run by the council in partnership with lots of different agencies including Community Payback, the Metropolitan Police, Safer Lambeth and Transport for London. Every month the council and all the agencies work together for an entire day to tackle specific problems and freshen up the area of a local ward.

Freshview aims to:
-Improve environmental quality
-Reduce anti-social behaviour
-Increase community engagement and partnership working.

Activities that can happen during Freshview include:
-Free bulky waste collections for residents in selected streets
-Issuing fines for littering and waste
-Removing flyposting and graffiti
-Community service by Youth Offending and Community Payback teams
-Confiscating illegal goods and firearms
-Removal of nuisance vehicles
-Inspections of commercial premises
-Improving street lighting
-Cutting back trees and hedges
-Deep cleansing of problem hotspots
-Information stall providing feedback for residents, and much more.

If you have suggestions for clean up tasks that need doing please get in touch with your councillors as soon as possible!

Free volunteering training from LVAC

Lambeth Voluntary Action Council’s Active Citizens Hub has an exciting range of courses designed to empower and motivate you to make a positive impact on your community. Our courses are free, and there is no limit to the amount of courses you can attend! All you have to do is fill out the booking form (email: Active.citizen@lambethvac.org.uk ) and return to the Active Citizens Hub to secure your place.

Community Advocates
(3 day course with graduation event and membership to the Community advocates network)
21, 22, 24 September 2010 and 16, 17, 19 November 2010
(9.30-4.30)

Community Advocates for young people
9, 10, 11 March 2011
(9.30-4.00)

Introduction to being a magistrate
5 October 2010 (9.30-1.00)

Introduction to being a school governor
7 October 2010 (9.30-1.00)

Introduction to being a trustee
20 October 2010
(9.30-1.00)

Good Governance
(2 day course)
9-10 November 2010
(9.30-4.30)

Volunteering with young people
8 February 2011 (9.30-1.00)

Introduction to Residents and Tenants Associations
15 February 2011 (9.30-1.00)

Health and social care for community representatives
17 March 2011 (9.30-4.00)

Active.citizen@lambethvac.org.uk or
020 7737 9467 to book now!!!

Open Day at the Cottington Community Garden

Residents of the Cottington Close Estate have been working hard over the past year to create a community garden on their estate.

Why not go along to their open day on Saturday 25 September, 11am-4pm?

There will be stalls and activities, and teh chance to get involved in what is a fantastic project.

Ward Purse 2010 launched

As you might have seen in this week's Lambeth Life, the 2010 'Ward Purse' scheme has been launched.

The scheme gives local ward councillors £12000 to distribute to community projects in their area.

Last year Councillors Steve Morgan, Lorna Campbell and Mark Harrison agreed to spend the money on:

-planting to improve 'Tolpaide Square' on the Ethelred Estate

-furniture for Vauxhall Gardens Estate RTA's Carmelita Community Centre

-equipment and plants for a community garden at Arden House

-works to improve Kennington Cross

In 2008 we gave given money to the Kennington Association's 'Tree of Hope' project (pictured).

We are now asking community groups and residents for ideas for this year's Ward Purse.

Projects need to be for capital items (eg improvements to buildings, not paying for staff), and be between £1000 and £12000 (ideally not more than £6000).

Please get in touch with us if you have a project idea as soon as possible - we will be aiming to make our decisions before November.

This weeked: Activate sports festival in Kennington Park

The Activate Festival is back again for 2010 and is even bigger and better than last year. This free festival is your opportunity to 'have a go' at over 25 Olympic and Paralympic sports including tennis, rowing, cycling, martial arts and athletics. (full list of sports below).

Other sporting activities will come in the shape of a climbing wall, a BMX track and a football kick out. With activities suitable for young and old, Activate is designed to get you up and active and having fun - whatever your age or ability.

Local sports clubs will also be on-hand across the whole weekend to offer training and advice. They will have information on how to get involved in all the sports on offer for those who want to continue doing their chosen sport after the Festival.

Activities will be divided into:

demonstrations, where experts in different sports put on exhibitions and show you how its done

have-a-go, your chance to give a new sport a try or brush up your skills if you've been away from it for a while

competitions (pre – registration required), Summer World Cup Finals (football), Disability Football Tournament and Skills sessions.

Full list of sports and activities
Tennis
Basketball
Netball
Disability Football
Football
Duathlon
BMX
Fencing
Rowing (indoor)
Climbing
Sailing (simulation)
Tag Rugby
Boccia
Volleyball
Athletics (sprinting)
Handball
Taekwondo
Kung FU
Tai Chi
Judo
And a number of other dancing to music disciplines

Healthy lifestyle
As well as all the sporting activity, if getting fit and maintaining a healthy lifestyle is your thing, special trainers from NHS Lambeth and Lambeth Community Health will be offering free health advice.

These qualified trainers can help with advice about controlling your weight, getting fitter, stopping smoking or having a healthier diet.

If you are aged 40 to 74 without a history of cardio-vascular disease, the Lambeth NHS Health Check outreach team can run checks to help identify potential risks of heart disease, kidney disease, stroke, diabetes, hypertension and high cholesterol at an early stage. This free service can help spot the early signs of problems. So even if you're feeling well, it’s worth having your NHS Health Check now.

Where and when

Venue: Kennington Park Road, SE11 4BE

Bus: 3, 36, 59, 133 155, 159, 185, 333 and 436

Location map for Kennington Park
Date: Saturday 18 and Sunday 19 September 2010

Time: 12 noon to 5pm

Cost: free

Tideway Tunnel consultation begins - big potential impact on the Vauxhall riverside

Thames Water has begun a public consultation on the construction of the 'Tideway Tunnel', a massive infrastructure project which will divert sewage from the River Thames.

Currently London's Victorian sewers carry untreated sewage directly into the river whenever there is heavy rain. The proposed Tunnel will run underneath the river, intercepting the sewer overflows and carrying sewage directly to the sewage treatment works in east London.

Building the Tunnel will be massively costly and challenging, and will require many large construction sites along the route of the river.

Unfortunately two 'Combined Sewer Overflows' reach the river at Vauxhall. A construction site will be needed to connect the sewers with the Tunnel.

Thames Water have decided their preferred site is here, on the riverside of Tintagel House and 89 Albert Embankment. (Their non-preferred sites are the riverside of MI6, the riverside of St George Wharf, and a site at Claylands Road in Oval.)

The whole site would need to be used for construction for three years. Thames Water are likely to require some permanent aboveground structures on the site after the construction work has finished. In order to accommodate these structures, they propose to extend the existing river wall to create a new area of hard-standing.

You can download a pdf explaning the proposals for Vauxhall in more detail here

Local councillors have just learnt of the plans and will be contacting Thames Water to suggest a consultation event takes in Vauxhall, and to ask more questions about the temporary and permanent effects of the construction works.

Information on all the construction sites and the consultation process is available at www.thamestunnelconsultation.co.uk

Don't forget this Saturday is:

Saturday, 12pm to 5pm, Vauxhall Spring Gardens

Your Labour councillors for Prince's and Oval wards will be running a Labour councillors' stall.