Archive for the ‘Events’ Category

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What’s beautiful to you?

Monday, September 6th, 2010

A photography competition is being run by Dezeen, the online architectural and design magazine and The Photographers’ Gallery to find ‘Areas of Outstanding Urban Beauty’.

The idea behind the competition is to find out what people love about the places where they live.

 

The photo could be of a single building, a cityscape or your newly designed Community Spaces project. The only requirements are that it must be somewhere beautiful to you.

 

The closing date is 5pm on Monday 11th October 2010 and the winning photograph will get published in The Photographers’ Gallery in London.

 

For more information regarding the competitin, click here.

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Halton Community Association’s project gets underway!

Wednesday, August 25th, 2010

 

The first part of the development has got underway at one of Community Spaces flagship projects.

Halton Community Association received £450,000 from Community Spaces to build leisure and recreational activities outside their newly extended community centre. The group are using the money to build a toddler play area, an adventure zone for older children, a BMX skate park, a seating and socialising area, along with adding more planting to redevelop the wildlife area. 

Within the last month, the community group have seen a new car park being installed; the old skate park equipment being removed off site and grass seeds being been planted on the turf surrounding the community centre 

The project is not due to finish until August 2011. We are looking forward to seeing the project develop over the next 12 months.

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Bringing the beach to Prescot!

Monday, August 23rd, 2010

 

Bryer Road Environmental Group celebrated the opening of their new natural play area in style by throwing a fun filled launch event. The group’s facilitator, David Hammond, reflects on how the play area has been transformed.

The hard work by the Bryer Road Environmental Group (BEG) in Prescot, Knowsley, has been rewarded this month with the launch of a natural play area which brings the beach to the centre of Prescot.

The natural play area is the third and final phase of a landscape master plan created back in 2001 with the help of local Groundwork Trust, Groundwork Merseyside.

A Surestart-funded children’s playground was the first phase of the project, sited behind the Bryer Road Community Centre.  A community garden & outdoor education area (used regularly by the children of nearby St Mary and St Pauls schools) was phase two. 

The natural play area – paid for with £35,000 of Community Spaces funding – is the third and most ambitious phase of the project.  It provides a range of challenging and fun equipment for both young and older children, including a wooden climbing frame, a tunnel, lookout post and boulder slope.   Rather than rubber or wood chip, the surface under the climbing frame is play sand, which is proving a hit with the local children.

Parents and tired children can enjoy taking a break on some very special benches.  Carved from solid logs with a chainsaw, the benches feature an array of wildlife.  Woodlice and centipedes crawl across the surface and a mole, dormouse and owl are just some of the creatures that peer out of the timber.

At the launch event, the face painting was as popular as ever.  And so a parade of young vampires, superheroes and animals enjoyed herb planting with the charity Landlife (based at the nearby National Wildflower Centre), jewellery making and a bouncy castle.  The mayors of Whiston and Prescot both visited to be shown around the play area by the BEG members.

Local residents enjoying the sunshine thought the new play area was fantastic.  One lady said ‘It’s like bringing the beach into Prescot. We will bring buckets and spades and stay all day.’

To see the fantastic photos from the launch event, visit our Flickr page.

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Gardening Against the Odds!

Monday, August 16th, 2010

Has your Community Spaces garden or allotment been made possible by the hard work and dedication of one individual or a small group of people?

Well, you could recognise their commitment by nominating them for the ‘Gardening Against the Odds Award.’ The competition is being run by the Daily Telegraph in association with the Conservation Foundation and Green & Blacks, and is dedicated to the memory of the Sunday Telegraph writer, Elspeth Thompson, who sadly passed away earlier this year.

 The entries can be on behalf of individual gardeners or small communities who have overcome obstacles such as creating a garden in an unlikely or hospitable corner or gardening in the face of physical or mental health problems such as depression or grief.

You can enter yourself, or nominate a friend by downloading an application form at www.telegraph.co.uk/gardeningawards.

A selection of the best entries will be posted on the Telegraph gardening website. For more information about the award and how you can enter, visit: www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening

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Lemington’s playful memories

Tuesday, August 10th, 2010

Lemington Community Association unveiled their new and improved community garden in July, and Facilitator Phil Macari told us how the launch event went.

Last month saw the launch of Lemington Community Associations’ ‘Community Garden Project’. Lemington is a proud, independent village, now part of the greater Newcastle area with a great industrial heritage, and an active and positive community association too. The garden is also close to the Coast to Coast Cycle Route and Hadrian’s Wall tourist routes: already the number of outside visitors to the area has increased.

After years of planning and fundraising locals have now turned this underused, bland and steep site into a place where people of all ages can sit quietly, play, meet and enjoy the garden, with its food, sensory, landscaped, wildlife and ‘Memorial’ areas. Up to 11 groups have already committed to adopting parts of the garden to help maintain it, and the sustainability grant is focused on giving more skills and opportunities to local people.

 John Shipley, ex-leader of the council, opened the site, and reiterated the achievements of this special part of Newcastle. There was a symbolic planting of a rose in the sensory garden by Liz and John, two of the main driving forces in the community association, families enjoyed sculpture workshops, and even a mobile healthy ‘wii’ station was on hand on another sunny day in Lemington!

Sounds like a fantastic project which will have lasting benefits for local people.

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A successful launch for Hemmingwell!

Tuesday, August 10th, 2010

Hemmingwell Regeneration Project launched on August 1st after receiving just over £27,000 from Community Spaces to improve their local square. Tamzin Smith, the groups Facilitator, went along to the launch to capture some of the community spirit!

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Love your park!

Tuesday, July 20th, 2010

With the summer now in full swing, there is nothing better to do then get outside and enjoy your local park, and there’s no better excuse then ‘Love Parks Week.’

 Love Parks Week is an annual celebration of our parks and green spaces. It is organised, by Community Spaces partner organisation, Green Space http://www.green-space.org.uk. Love Parks Week raises awareness of what our parks have to offer, and is a campaign to save these valuable community assets.

 The annual celebration starts from the 24th July, and continues all week until the 1st August.  There will be organised events across the country for people to get involved in. If you’ve received funding for your park through the Community Spaces programme then your group might want to use Love Parks Week as an opportunity to promote your project and get more people into the park.

 To find out more about organising your own event or about events happening near you visit www.loveparksweek.org.uk

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Fantastic Pictures from Fairland Park

Tuesday, July 20th, 2010

Launch event at Fairland Park

The Fairland Park project in Hornsey, London held their official opening ceremony on Sunday (18th July). The group, which received just under £50k from the Community Spaces programme, used funding to create a new play area in the park. Working with local partners and Groundwork London, the group has transformed the park with new landscaping, seating and play equipment.

Some fantastic photographs from the launch can be seen here: http://theladderopenspace.wordpress.com/2010/07/19/photos-of-fairland-park-summer-party

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The final piece to Blacon Community Trust’s project has been laid

Wednesday, July 14th, 2010

This month saw the finishing of the Blacon Greenway and Old Station project that was funded by the Community Spaces programme. Facilitator David Hammond describes the transformation of the old Station site.

The final piece was quite literally laid this month in a regeneration project that has turned a grot spot into a gateway that is bringing pride to the local community.  

A railway line used to connect Blacon to the nearby city of Chester and Connah’s Quay on the Welsh coast.  The railway closed decades ago, leaving behind the site of the old station.  This sat neglected and unloved for years, a haven for weeds, litter and anti social behaviour. 

The coming of a Sustrans cycle route brought the railway route back into use, but it has taken the dedication of volunteers from Blacon Community Trust and £85k of money from WREN and Community Spaces to transform the site.  Stephen Perry deserves a special mention as the tireless volunteer project manager whose efforts have inspired hundreds of local people to get involved in the project.

The site has been themed around its railway heritage, with signs, fencing and benches that echo the age of steam.  Access improvements, planting and chainsaw sculptures mean that everyone can now find something to enjoy in the peace and quiet of the Old Station site, just two minutes from the heart of Blacon.

Most of the work was finished last December and was celebrated with a Christmas event complete with mince pies, Santa and snow.  But the centrepiece of the site was unveiled this month: a colourful mosaic containing 1,500 individual tiles! 

One thousand tiles were handmade by children at the five nearby primary schools, along with local community groups.  On Saturday 10 July, to coincide with the Blacon Festival, some of the children who had helped create the mosaic revealed it to an expectant crowd which included the Lord Mayor, Cllr Neil Ritchie.

The amazing mosaic is four metres across.  It brings together 120 years of history, with one half representing a train wheel and the other a bicycle wheel.  These bring together the past and present, linking the railway with the national cycle route that now runs through the site.

 As a Community Spaces facilitator, all of the projects that I am involved with are special.  It is always a privilege to work with people who are so passionate about transforming their local areas.  This project stands out because of the almost obsessive detail and sheer effort that has gone into making a unique piece of artwork.

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Have you got what it takes to be the next young Darwin?

Tuesday, July 13th, 2010

Have you got some young, budding journalists in your community? Well if so, then this competition is for you!

The Young Darwin Prize is a competition to find the best nature news video produced by young people.

The competition is being run by the National History Museum, supported by Defra. They are looking for groups of up to 10 people to make a short news video about their local biodiversity project to enter into their competition.

This is a great way for children to explore your newly developed Community Spaces project and learn about the wildlife living there.

There are two entry categories, ages 7-11 years (Key Stage 2 or equivalent) and ages 11-14 years (key Stage 3 or equivalent).

The winning group out of both categories wins £500 and a visit to a local biodiversity site of special interest. The winners will also be invited to a VIP event at the Natural History Museum to go-behind the scenes and collect their prize and present their film.

The closing date for all entries is 31st August 2010. For more details about how to enter the competition, visit, http://www.biodiversityislife.net/?q=node/297.

If anyone from your Community Spaces project is entering the competition, then please let us know at, press@community-spaces.org.uk

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