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What happened at WEN’s Public Meeting?

West Ealing Neighbours Public Meeting 21st February 2012

OPEN Ealing

 

David Highton (Chair) provided a report on WEN’s activities:

Lido Junction

Finally WEN’s proposal for changing this dangerous junction has been approved and is going ahead. After the public consultation on the original proposals the Council have dropped the idea of loading and parking bays on Drayton Green Road.  This is a well earned success for WEN

Craft Fair

WEN have been talking to the Council for the past 18 months about a monthly craft fair in St James Avenue, after a lot of red tape we finally have the go ahead to run it and the first one is Saturday 7th April.  This is a joint project with St James Church who will be open to provide teas/coffees as well as outreach work.

West Ealing Family Day

This will happen again in Melbourne Avenue and St James Avenue. There will be a variety events scheduled.  More information will be available later in the year.

Book Swap

Chris Gilson from WEN runs this popular book swap at West Ealing station.  He has just secured permission for a book swap at Ealing Broadway station – platform 2. 

In December 2011, the campaign was the winner of the first #ideas4Mayor competition at the London Policy Conference. The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, said of the project:

“I think it’s a very good idea and would say something powerful about the kind of city we are and our commitment to literacy, which obviously we are trying to demonstrate in lots of ways particularly with young people”

Abundance

This project is now in its 6th year and the group have now taken on Walmer Gardens Orchard in West Ealing.  The renovation of this Orchard is fully support by Ealing Park Rangers team and expertise is provided by the London Orchard Project. Both clearing and pruning have taken place in Jan/Feb this year.  Abundance is now securing more volunteers for the project.

Book Club

This is a monthly club who meet at the Star and Anchor.  For more information email wenreadinggroup@live.co.uk

 

Eric Leach, Vice Chair provided an update on WEN’s activities in relation to planning. Eric has been heavily involved in the Local Development Framework planning process which will have a big impact on West Ealing. The Localism Act coming into effecting April 2012 will give us the opportunity to be involved with the formation of neighbourhood forums – for more information see http://www.planningportal.gov.uk/inyourarea/neighbourhood/

Eric then opened up the floor to those present regarding the future of West Ealing Neighbours. The background to this is that the constitution states committee members can serve no longer than 5 years. Several committee members are now reaching their 5th anniversary, including the Chair (David) and Vice Chair (Eric) therefore new ideas and new individuals are being sought by WEN to take us through the next phase. A fair few individuals hesitated at the thought of not being able to devote time to WEN, or have an idea exactly what they were volunteering for! – those committee members present re-iterated that involvement is not onerous and all of us have started our own projects that we believe in and therefore are prepared to put the time in for the projects to succeed.

Coming along to the meetings to see what goes on is the best thing to see what happens and offer up ideas.

More discussion took place on the nature and format of WEN meetings to make them less like work meeting and more like social ‘gatherings’ offering wine, nibbles and an informal environment.

David Highton concluded that the next 12 months should be about transition to look at how WEN can be run going forward and any new office holders would be mentored for 6 months by the outgoing office holders. The current holders would therefore stay in their posts until new individuals are in place – with either the same type of structure, or a new one to be agreed.

The next WEN social gathering is to be held on Wednesday 21st March at OPEN Ealing, 113 Uxbridge Road (corner of Culmington) nr the fire station on the 2nd floor Café starting at 7.30pm – wine and nibbles provided. Please come along and bring a friend too!

 

Diane Gill

Secretary – WEN

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-3.5c and we were still up for pruning our West Ealing Orchard

Oh yes we at WEN Abundance and Ealing Transition are a hardy lot!  We braved the freezing cold on Saturday 4th February to be part of a pruning workshop at our lovely little Orchard at Walmer Gardens. The London Orchard Project are doing a fantastic job helping us and brought in an expert to guide us through the day.

With some dedicated volunteers and support – including Jon Skoyles, Ealing Park Ranger, this Orchard has undergone a complete transformation. It will take a couple more years of pruning, planting and caring for the place but we know it will be worth bringing this place back to life.

Next up is the beehive Ealing Transition will be setting up around April – I’ll let you know exact dates when confirmed should anyone be interested in coming along.

Here are some pictures of the day (click to enlarge).

 

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Pedestrian Safety at the Lido Junction: The Public Have Their Say

On Tuesday 6 December 2011 some 50 people attended a public meeting to discuss Ealing Council’s proposals to make the Lido Junction safe for pedestrians – for the first time in living memory. West Ealing Neighbours (WEN) organised the meeting and it was WEN (along with Five Roads and Kingsdown Residents’ groups) who researched and published its findings and recommendations on the junction in 2009. This report in fact stimulated the Council and Transport (TfL) for London into action.

We are in the middle of a public consultation on the proposals and Councillor Mahfouz, the Council’s Transport Czar, answered questions posed by the audience on the proposals.

Continue reading “Pedestrian Safety at the Lido Junction: The Public Have Their Say”

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A very busy year for WEN Abundance

It’s that time of year where Abundance goes into hibernation for the winter after a season that started in August and stretched all the way to November! This year we picked around 1.5 tonnes of fruit – apples and pears were by far the most popular, however we saw a bumper crop of quinces too. We mainly picked in West Ealing, Ealing and Hanwell, but also took a trip down to Kent and managed to pick around 400kilos over a weekend.

Our apple juice has been sold by Cheddar Deli as well as The Little Art Room and they have taken the last of our apple and pear juice to sell at Xmas fairs. We have also developed 3 new chutneys this year so look out for them next year, along with yours and our favourites.

We covered more fairs this year, with the addition of Pitshanger Party in the Park. Our second West Ealing Family Day was a great success and it was lovely to see some of the tree owners popping by at the stall for a chat to find out what we had done with the fruit we picked. Talking of which we managed to pick at every location we were requested at – There were quite a few new trees from private back gardens as word of mouth spreads about our project.

We have also now taken over Walmer Gardens Orchard with Ealing Council’s permission and had a very positive response to the consultation of the local area for the renovation of this small Orchard starting in January 2012.

Of course we couldn’t have done any of this if it wasn’t for a small team of very dedicated individuals that devote an inordinate amount of their free time to this project – a big thank you to you all.

So in summary a very successful year for us – and we have plans to expand in 2012, more of which in the next Newsletter after a well deserved rest.

Signing off for a few weeks, a very shattered WEN Abundance Team!

Have a great Xmas and New Year and see you in 2012.

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Unleash your inner art critic – for radio

THURSDAY DECEMBER 1st. 2011, 6.00 – 9.30pm. Cost: £25

At OPEN Ealing Arts Project, 113 Uxbridge Road, London, W5 5TL
Refreshments and course materials will be provided. Numbers are limited so please reserve a place by emailing chrissie.kravchenko (AT) btinternet.com with your contact details.

Find your VOICE and make your CHOICE

 Estelle Lovatt is a freelance art critic for broadcast and print including BBC Radio 2’s flagship arts programme `The New Arts Show With Claudia Winkleman’ and `Art of England’ magazine. In this workshop she will coach budding art critics how to write art reviews specifically for radio. Art criticism for radio involves a specific way of both looking at and describing a work of art. The workshop will look at how the spoken (versus the written) critique is presented, script layout and writing for the programme host. The venue for the workshop is the OPEN community art gallery, where there will be an exhibition to inspire you.

To criticize art properly on air, you need to understand the work and its importance and relay that to the listener, who cannot see it. This  involves description, analysis and interpretation of the artwork.

We will also look at how critics decide what they really think about the artwork. Do you like or dislike it? Why? And how do YOU feel about  whether the artist was successful in conveying an idea? You will present your own style arts programme review, where you’ll talk about whether an artwork is successful. This will involve looking at the use of formal compositional elements and principles of design and how  these interact. The feelings invoked by each work of art will be based on your own personal experiences and judgement! The aim is that listeners  will follow and trust your opinions and you can build up a following.

www.womeninradio.org.uk

Charity Reg. Number: 801473
Company Reg. Number: 2340282 

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Government Examines Ealing’s 15 Year Plan – Final Day

DAY 8 – Wednesday 23 November 2011

As part of an ongoing series, Eric Leach reports from the Independent Examination of Ealing Council’s 2026 Local Development Framework Core Strategy (LDF CS).

Elizabeth Fieldhouse, the Government appointed Planning Inspector, today concluded her examination of Ealing Council’s 15 year land use plans. Her public examination hearings, which lasted eight and a half days, have considered Ealing Council’s Local Development Framework Core Strategy (LDF CS).

Hard copies of the latest batch (200+!) of the Inspector’s suggested changes and the Council’s responses were handed out to attendees. There were many queries on the detailed Council responses and none more so than on heritage issues. Representatives from the Ealing Cricket Ground Area Panel (CGAP), Ealing Civic Society (ECS) and the LibDems all made various attempts to make the LDF CS more heritage friendly but met stout resistance from Ealing Council. ECS strongly questioned why there was no explicit protection for Ealing centre’s heritage assets.

Continue reading “Government Examines Ealing’s 15 Year Plan – Final Day”