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Anti-riot cup cakes, pizza and a mural – OPEN Ealing helps restore a little community spirit

OPEN Ealing’s Jack Jones and friends spent part of Saturday painting a mural on the shutters boarding up the boarded up baby e shop on Ealing Green

baby e mural painted by Jack Jones of OPEN Ealing

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‘ Yesterday we took to the streets to help reconstruct our community that has been rocked by this weeks events. I turned up at Baby e with a bag full of paints and we all set to work.

We were later unexpectedly joined by “bake for a better britain” who had made some amazing anti riot cup cakes and they did a great job of providing a happy atmosphere and conversation to the public while we busied ourselves with pots of paint and composition tweaking.

The pizza place next door even came out with pizza for everyone, which was equally amazing as the cup cakes. We had set up paper for the public to draw on, and who left many encouraging messages of support. thank you to everyone who came out yesterday to support us. For the first time in a while, I’ve been proud to say I am from Ealing.

You can read the full story and see the photos taken during the day at http://openealing.com/wordpress/

 

David Highton

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Volunteers and musicians needed for OPEN Ealing

OPEN Ealing is looking for volunteers to help on its reception between 11am and 5pm daily in August and then also between 5-9pm from September. We are also looking  for musicians who are interested in playing at our monthly lunchtime events starting in September.

This month we are busy with our 5 weeks of children’s workshops each weekday between 11am and 5pm. Then from September we will launch our autumn schedule for adults which includes a range of evening activities on most evenings in the week so need help on reception between 5pm and 9pm.

Reception is the public face of OPEN Ealing and the role covers:

  • registering children attending the workshops
  • registering adults attending classes and workshops
  • booking in people wishing to attend the workshops and classes
  • dealing with enquiries from the public both in person and on the phone

We are also looking for musicians who are interested in playing at our forthcoming series of monthly Friday lunchtime events. We can pay expenses and provide lunch. We are keen to have a wide range of music from classical, folk, jazz and more.

If you’re interested in volunteering please call us on 020 8579 5558 weekdays from 10am to 5pm or just drop in and visit us at 113 Uxbridge Road (opposite Ealing fire station). We’d be very happy to show you round and explain more about OPEN Ealing and the reception role.

David Highton

 

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Pirates invade West Ealing

Sand castles, spectacularly coloured fish and a pirate ship  – all a result of OPEN Ealing’s first week of summer holiday worshops for children.

With the beach theme for our first week we started off with a bang when we were oversubscribed for the first afternoon workshop which saw sand and PVA glue come together in weird and wonderful ways to create some imaginative sand sculptures.

Then on to elaborate and beautfully deocorated fish which would grace any aquarium and we faced fierce rivalry with two teams beavering away to become pirates for the afternoon. They ended up with their own pirate ship painted with a skull and crossbones on our specially constructed indoor beach.

Our only disappointment was that no one turned up to our two interactive storytelling sessions  for under 6-year-olds. I think that may be down to us not explaining that it was much more than just storytelling. It would be mixture of storytelling and making all sorts of beach themed items like starfish and shells.

Anyway, I for one welcomed the sight of a cool glass of wine as we relaxed at the end of a busy but enjoyable first week of summer workshops.

David Highton