Neighbours And Neighbourhoods News
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Greenhouse project with Woodlands Park Primary School
Tuesday, August 25 2009
The original idea of making a greenhouse out of plastic bottles came from a project in Scotland and MDHA approached Woodlands Park Primary School with the evaluation and photos from this project. The school really wanted to make the greenhouse and so all the children started collecting the 2 litre plastic bottles needed. One of the teachers at the school’s husband is a carpenter and built the wooden frame for the green house, which is attached to one of the school walls in their playground. MDHA provided the bamboo canes that hold the bottles in place and helped the children to make it on the day. Different groups of children helped through the day starting first thing with girls from the nursery who helped bring all the bottles from their collection point round to the greenhouse. A large group of year 5s helped to cut the bottoms off the bottles and start sliding them onto the bamboo canes. At the end of the day we were helped by four year 6s who carried out some of the trickier work getting all the bamboo canes attached to the wooden frame. Because of the summer holidays they won’t be putting plants into the greenhouse until September and MDHA will hopefully be going back in September to see how they are getting on.
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Drama Project at St Luke’s Primary School
The drama project was a Friday after-school club that lasted 9 weeks and included an education session with Ankit Rao the RBWM Waste Awareness Officer during which the children got to work out which bits of waste go into which recycling box and how they can re-use other materials that can’t yet be recycled. They learnt about the sorts of things that can be made out of recycled materials (e.g. pencils, fleeces etc), and at the end of the session they played a matching pairs game with different recyclable objects.
On the Saturday half way through the project there was a weekend session during which parents could come and get involved with their children. Parents and children both took part in some warm-up drama exercises, including a mirroring exercise, and also worked together to make stage props and costumes out of recycled materials.
The final performance was very well received and the project was covered by the Maidenhead Advertiser.
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Street art and film project - young people thinking about their lives and their community
Thursday, August 20 2009
During three weeks of planning sessions young people attending Pinkneys Green youth club discussed issues around three themes:
• Personal identity
• Homes and buildings
• Parks and open spaces
Ideas were generated using questionnaires and drama games, to encourage the young people to come forward with their opinions about where they live and their lives in Pinkneys Green.
We managed to get lots of feedback from the young people about the positives and negatives of where they live, how they feel about being a young person in Pinkeys Green and how they are viewed by the rest of the community.
The young people worked really hard to create Street Art designs ready to paint them onto display boards and to think up ideas and concepts to use in making their film during the full days of activities that were planned for the Easter holidays.
Over the Easter the young people got to see their planning turn into real creative works of art and film and these have then been displayed in Pinkneys Green Community Centre and at the Oaken Grove Fun Day 2009.
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Phase Two of the TSA’s National Conversation
Tuesday, August 04 2009
The first phase of the National Conversation took place between January and March 2009. Tenants and landlords were able to give feedback in a number of different ways including regional and national events, by visiting the TSA’s camper van that toured the country, and by filling in the TSA’s questionnaire by post or online. Around 30,000 people took part in this stage of the National Conversation. Tenants listed repairs and maintenance, ensuring homes are up to date and in a decent condition, tackling anti-social behaviour and being consulted with by their landlords as their top priorities. All the feedback from this phase will now go towards developing new standards to improve services for tenants and inform the future of social housing. To achieve this the TSA are moving to Phase Two of their National Conversation and are taking proposals to tenants and landlords that have been drafted based on the results of Phase One.
The draft standards that the TSA have produced come under the following groups:
The service offer to tenants
- Quality of accommadation
- Tenant choice and customer service
- Repairs and maintenance
- Neighbourhood and estate management
- Anti-social behaviour and security
Tenant empowerment and involvement
- Tenant empowerment
- Complaints
- Local area cooperation
The tenancy agreement
- Rent
- Tenure
- Allocations
- Governance
- Viability
- Efficiency and value for money
If you would like to take part in this stage of the National Conversation please visit their web page http://www.nationalconversation.co.uk/Conversations/Local-conversations.aspx where you can download summary papers, a feedback form and more information about the National Conversation. If you would like a paper copy of any of this information please contact our offices on 0800 876 6060.
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Bridgewater Housing is looking for new Resident Board Members
Monday, May 18 2009
Bridgewater Housing, a member of the Housing Solutions Group based in Maidenhead, is a not for profit company which specialises in the provision of sheltered and supported housing for older people with learning difficulties.
Bridgewater Housing is committed to making a positive difference to the lives of our residents by providing housing and services which help them to live independently for as long as possible. This means providing the right housing and support services so that they can continue to live within the community. Bridgewater Housing is at the forefront of building state-of-the-art accommodation and pioneering new technology to promote independent living.
Bridgewater Housing is looking for two new resident board members. As members of the board, new members will be ultimately responsible for ensuring good governance, the overall strategic direction and the legal and financial performance of the organisation.
The board meets 6 times a year in the evening and board members also attend strategy weekends twice a year. Resident board members work alongside other tenant appointees and independent board members. Resident board members will also be automatically appointed to the Residents’ Association Executive Committee, which meets monthly and works at an operational level with staff.
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