150 days of community in West Ealing: Week 3

Today is the start of Week 3 of our 150 days of community project. Don’t know what we’re talking about? Then click here.

Here are some lovely examples of ‘acts of community’ people have sent us over the last week:

Bus flowersHappy spring time everyone!

Just sharing a picture of the lovely crocuses on Ealing Green … snapped from the top of Bus 65 yesterday afternoon šŸ™‚

-James

Grosvenor Pub news.
There is a thread on our forum started by the new owners at http://www.westealingneighbours.org.uk/WEN-blog/wen-forum/wen-forum-group1/general-discussion-forum2/the-grosvenor-pub-thread57.0 and we are invited individually to contact the owner on peterm@foodandfuel.co.uk if we would like to attend a meeting to get to know them and express our views

-Valeria

Ealing hospital.

Just some unsolicited opinion[n] for you all.

Unfortunately weā€™ve had to bring our little one into Ealing hospital for a little bit of treatment, and having heard and read bits and pieces of negative comments and being aware of the bigger issue of it being closed/ services being removed, we were a little concerned about how weā€™d find it. We have been given the best care Iā€™ve ever experienced. Efficient professional staff who canā€™t do enough to let you know whatā€™s going on and why. I really couldnā€™t ask for more.

– Jayneā€Ž

Hereā€™s our next list of seven things we reckon are good for making things better in West Ealing:

  • Support local shops
  • Have a bake sale for a charity
  • Help jump start someoneā€™s car
  • Organise or join a team sport
  • Join a gardening club
  • Attend house parties when invited

Weā€™d love to hear from you if you do any of these things, or anything else that makes people smile in West Ealing. We have loads more suggestions of things you can do, if you want to jump ahead!

Ways to send us your contributions:

Send us an email ā€“ 150daysofcommunity@gmail.com
Write on our Facebook wall – https://www.facebook.com/groups/124290860921562/Ā 
Tweet at us ā€“ @WENeighbours
Add a comment to this blog post (below)

Charity Fundraiser Barn Dance at St James Church on Saturday 1st March from 7.30pm

Just giving a final shout out about our Charity Fundraiser Barn Dance… NEXT Saturday… ALL welcome, come alone, come with family/friends, colleagues… Great band, Raffle, Homemade Cakes… you can bring your own drinks (alcohol allowed). Tickets can be purchased on the night… so just come and join us for a great evening! & Support a local charity helping Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse (1 in 4 girls & 1 in 6 boys are sexually abused during childhood)… our charity is SO needed and we need support to keep us going.

Just giving a final shout out about our Charity Fundraiser Barn Dance... NEXT Saturday... ALL welcome, come alone, come with family/friends, colleagues... Great band, Raffle, Homemade Cakes... you can bring your own drinks (alcohol allowed). Tickets can be purchased on the night... so just come and join us for a great evening! & Support a local charity helping Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse (1 in 4 girls & 1 in 6 boys are sexually abused during childhood)... our charity is SO needed and we need support to keep us going.
Ā 

Six More Short Plays at OPENEaling – Friday 28th Feb 8pm

SIX short plays 4

Another bunch of performed readings on Friday 28th February, 8pm at OPENShop, 13 Drayton Green Road, W13 0NG.

Six plays by writers: Tom Jensen, Liam O’Grady and Wally Sewell will be performed by actors: Olivia Busby, Robert Blackwood and Joan Blackham, directed by Anthony Shrubsall.

Ā£5 on the door

SIX short plays 4

Another bunch of performed readings on Friday 28th February, 7.30pm at OPENShop, 13 Drayton Green Road, W13 0NG.

Six plays by writers: Tom Jensen, Liam O'Grady and Wally Sewell will be performed by actors: Olivia Busby, Robert Blackwood and Joan Blackham, directed by Anthony Shrubsall.

Ā£5 on the door
Ā 

Guerrilla Gardening in West Ealing – Saturday 1st March

Christina Fox from the Northfields Allotments writes:

Some of you might know the unloved pathway between the Northfield Avenue allotments and the gardens of Loveday Road. You can see it on the google map here

We’ve* recently discovered that the pathway belongs to the allotments, which was a bit of a surprise.Ā  So we have decided to adopt it and try and tidy it up.

The short term plan is to clear the mud off the tarmac path, sow wildflowers and build a loggery for the stag beetles (which have been spotted on the allotments). We have made a start and you can see what we’ve already done here

The long term plan for the pathway – which we have named Radbourne Walk – is to manage it as a wildlife corridor. We also want ot make it a pleasant place for people too. So if you use it as a short cut or take the dog for a walk we hope you’ll find it a pleasant place to be and actually walk along with a spring in your step as you enjoy the flowers. šŸ˜‰

You can find out more about what inspired us and what our plans are – here

If you are up for a bit of volunteer gardening – you’d be very welcome – even if you only spare us an hour.

The next session in on Saturday 1stĀ  March. Our aim is to clean another section of path, weā€™ll also sow another wildflower meadow and create the first loggery for the stag beetles.

We will be working on the lower section near Occupation Road. If you would like to volunteer bring a garden fork, spade, rake or stiff broom.

We’ll meet on the footpath at 10am on Saturday 1st March for a quick briefing and then off we go. Do let us know if you are comingĀ  (emailĀ  allotmentsw13@gmail.com )Ā  – just so we can bring enough tea bags šŸ˜‰

Christina Fox

Chair: Ealing Dean Allotment Society

* We are the newly formed Ealing Dean Allotment Society – set up to manage the allotments in Northfields Avenue on behalf on our landlord Pathways. All our members are plot holders at Northfields.

The aims of the Society are:
2.1Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā Ā  To provide a safe, secure, accessible and well-managed allotment site for the benefit of the Members of the Society (ā€œthe Membersā€)
2.2Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā Ā  To improve and enhance the allotments for the greater convenience and enjoyment of the Members
2.3Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā Ā  To be a good neighbour to the local community
2.4Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā Ā  To conserve the allotment as a green space in a built-up area and secure its long term use as allotment gardens and a haven for wildlife and its conservation
2.5Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā Ā  To contribute to healthy living through open-air physical activity and the cultivation of natural food produce, flowers and fruit trees
2.6Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā Ā  To foster community fellowship and social relationships between Members, irrespective of age, gender, faith, race, ethnic origin, disability or sexual orientation.
2.7Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā Ā  To promote the art, science and practice of horticulture among Members and the wider community of Ealing.

150 days of community in West Ealing: Week 2

We’re now one week into our new project for West Ealing. Last week, we asked you for examples of some of your day-to-day ‘acts of community’ in and around West Ealing, and you sent in some brilliant stories. Things are starting to kick off (in a good way!) on our Facebook page, so please have a look there if you’re that way inclined. Here are some of ‘acts of community’ from last week that we really liked:

I was by the spirits looking for sherry, in Sainsburyā€™s, and I smiled at a lady next to me and said ā€˜Iā€™m going to make a trifle and I only want a small sherryā€™ so she proceeded to suggest many things I could put in this trifle. She said, ā€˜Have you got any whisky at homeā€™, I said ā€˜I donā€™t know, Iā€™m at my daughterā€™s’, she said ā€˜phone her up and ask her.ā€™ I decided eventually just to use fruit juice.Ā  This was one of two conversations in West Ealing Broadway this morning. I also obtained at least five smiles from different people!
Margaret, a visitor to West Ealing, aged 89, who likes the Broadway!

We had two community fundraisers at Christ the Saviour School yesterday. Donuts for Dads breakfast, inviting Dads and carers that otherwise wouldnā€™t get to drop their children at school as they need to get to work and a year 5 and 6 bake off. We had 150 for Donuts and 28 teams for the bake off. Lots of smiles, lots of humour and I felt blessed to be part of an amazing school with the most lovely children. Made my valentines day.
– Diane

Now we’re into Week 2, here’s our next list of seven things we reckon are good for making things better in West Ealing:

  • Volunteer your special skills to an organization
  • Donate blood (with a friend!)
  • Join the community garden
  • Offer time, or ask for help from, a mentoring scheme
  • Surprise a new neighbour with a homemade cake or bread
  • Audio- or video-record your parentsā€™ earliest memories and share them with your children
  • Plan a holiday with friends or family

We’d love to hear from you if you do any of these things, or anything else that makes people smile in West Ealing. We have loads more suggestions of things you can do, if you want to jump ahead!

Ways to send us your contributions:

Send us an email ā€“ 150daysofcommunity@gmail.com
Write on our Facebook wall – https://www.facebook.com/groups/124290860921562/Ā 
Tweet at us ā€“ @WENeighbours
Add a comment to this blog post (below)

Introducing 150 days of community in West Ealing

What do you think of West Ealing? Many of us who live here think that it’s a great place to live, work and play. But not everyone shares that perception, and that’s something that’s important to acknowledge. Here’s a sampling of some of the less pleasant tweets about our area from the past few years

It’s difficult reading isn’t it? Or perhaps you think that it’s about right, or at least that there is a grain of truth. Maybe there is, maybe there isn’t. With these negatives in mind, we’ve resolved to create a new project – starting today – and we want you to get involved. We call it 150 days of community in West Ealing.

Neighbours  in and around West Ealing
Neighbours in and around West Ealing

You donā€™t need to do anything you donā€™t normally do, in order to join in. We just want you to share your acts of community and kindness over the next four or five months with us. All the things that make you smile!

A bit like Facebook, the idea is Ā just to share certain things with your neighbours. These are the things we might count as ā€˜building social capitalā€™ – but we often take for granted as ā€˜just lifeā€™.

You can share, via images, videos, text, twitter, Facebook, email, blog. A few words, a story, a picture or a video clip, a useful link, is all thatā€™s needed. You might be recording something momentous or something very ordinary, something that happened to you or something that you witnessed.

We’re defining our area quite loosely – anything that happens in West Ealing and its ‘borders’ – Ealing Broadway, Hanwell, Pitshanger, Northfields, South Ealing. We’d love to hear from all of you!

To inspire youā€™ve weā€™ve created a non-definitive list of ideas for things that create ā€˜social capitalā€™. Weā€™ve already got 150+ ideas, and there are seven a week that you can use to inspire you. You don’t have to do all of them in any given week, or any of them – you can even skip ahead and do some of the other 143! You can also send in uncategorised ā€˜evidenceā€™, too and weā€™ll tag it and organise it.

We’ll summarise contributions weekly and suggest the next seven topics.

By the end, we’ll have all of your contributions in a great big online list, so that we can all see the great things that we do and, even more importantly, can do, in and around West Ealing.

This project is loosely based on the work of Robert Putnam (author of ‘Bowling Alone‘) on social capital.

West Ealing Neighbours wants to create the antidote to the impression that we sometimes have that people think West Ealing is a dump.

So, neighbours, weā€™ve got 150 days to make a collection of evidence that proves the naysayers wrong – can we do it?

Our suggestions for Week 1 – week beginning 14 February

Ways to send in your contributions:

Send us an email – 150daysofcommunity@gmail.com
Write on our Facebook wall – https://www.facebook.com/groups/124290860921562/Ā 
Tweet at us – @WENeighbours
Add a comment to this blog post (below)

 

Get juicy at West Ealing’s Pop Up Shop

Ealing Pop Up Shop

Ealing Pop-Up Shop has re-opened its doors this week with a new trader selling freshly made fruit juices and vegetables.

The juiceCube will be based in Ealing Councilā€™s pop-up shop, at 99 Broadway, West Ealing, until 22 February.Ā  The fruit and vegetable drinks are made while-you-wait. Check out his website www.juice-cube.co.uk

He has organised an event to celebrate his opening on Thursday 13 February, 5.30pm-8.30pm

There will be live music, table tennis and refreshments. Please make it down and circulate email to everyone whoā€™d be interested.

For details of upcoming traders at Ealing Pop Up Shop, please visit www.ealing.gov.uk/popupshop

Let’s reverse community decline: public meeting at Ealing Town Hall Weds Feb 19th 7pm

Local Works are organising a public meeting on the Sustainable Communities Act. Ā Please come along and hear how to use the act to protect and promote local services, shops, trade and the environment in West London. There will be ample opportunity to ask questions and make comments – we want to involve you. Food and drink will also be provided.

Wednesday 19th February 7pm ā€“ 9pm

Telfer Room, Ealing Town Hall, New Broadway, W5 2BY

Chair: Ā Ā 

Alex Runswick, Director, Unlock Democracy

Speakers:

Cllr Ranjit Dheer, Deputy Leader of Ealing Council

Nic Ferriday, Ealing Friends of the Earth

James Watson, Campaign for Real Ale, East London & City Branch

Steve Shaw, National Coordinator, Local Works

The Sustainable Communities Act has produced some great results for communities across the country. However many still do not know about its potential – government ministers have even described it as ā€˜Britainā€™s best kept secretā€™. Please get involved by coming along and help us get Londonā€™s councils involved too.

More information here

More hotels planned for Ealing

When we first moved to West Ealing in 1978 the main hotel in the area was the then Carnarvon on Ealing Common. My father remembers this hotel being a few Victorian houses joined together when he was staying there at the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939. Staying there with is father, he tells the story of how the first job as soon as war was announced was to help sandbag the windows of the bar!

There was little change for decades after that. A new Carnarvon Hotel was built but not much else. Fast forward to the 21st century and there are now hotels springing up everywhere. What set me thinking about this was seeing that Dawley House, one of the office blocks on the Uxbridge Road between Ealing Broadway and West Ealing, looks likely to be demolished and become yet another hotel. The application mentions building a part 9, 10 and 12-storey building to house an 88-unit apartment hotel comprising 33 studio suites, 29 x 1-bedroom suites and 16 x 2-bedroom suites.

Thinking about it we will soon have the following hotels in the area:

  • The Double Tree Hilton (once the Carnarvon)Ā  at Ealing Common which has just been extensively upgraded
  • The new boutique Hotel Xanadu in Bond Street
  • The Travelodge on the Uxbridge Road
  • The Premier Inn on the Uxbridge Road
  • The new 100 or so bedroom hotel being built on the old TVU site next to the 250-foot under constructtion Apex block of flats on the Uxbridge Road
  • The recently renovated Drayton Court Hotel which has gone back to being an hotel
  • Best Western Maitrise apartment hotel on the Uxbridge Road in West Ealing
  • The Holiday Inn Express which will one day be built in West Ealing on the corner of the Uxbridge Road and Melbourne Avenue

ThenĀ  I think I’m right that the Regus serviced office building opposite the fire station has put in for or evenĀ  been granted permission to become a hotel. Lastly, Dawley House looks set to be demolished and become an hotel, which is where this post started.

From what little I’ve heard, all the current hotels are doing well. I can understand that Crossrail is one of the drivers behind this ‘explosion’ in hotels. Assuming that the hotel owners’ research has shown there is a demand for all these hotel rooms then it’s got to be good for the area. I just hope it helps drive up the local economy as all these people coming to Ealing offer local restuarants, pubs, Questors and the (hopefully) new cinema/cultural site a fantastic opportunity to increase business which will benefit local residents as well as the hotel guests.

 

 

 

 

 

Celebrating Ealing’s Music and Film heritage 12-16th February

Whether it’s ballet, blues music, classical music, the genius of Alec Guinness or curiousity about what happens at Ealing Studios, you’ll find something to intrigue and entice you at this year’s Ealing Music & Film Valentine Festival. Highlights include:

  • Opening with a concert at Ealing Abbey with the English Chamber Orchestra playing music from Haydn, Holst and Vaughan Williams – Wednesday 12th February
  • Dame Gillian Lynne in discussion with acclaimed film maker Tony Palmer about her career as a dancer and choreographer – Thursday 13th February
  • Blues music at the Ealing Club on Thursday,Friday and Saturday evenings
  • Showing of The Man in The White Suit starring Sir Alec Guinness – Ealing Town Hall on Friday 14th February
  • Tour of Ealing Studios – Saturday 15th February
  • Rock’n’Roll legend Pete Townshend talking to Tony Palmer about his career and worldwide fame with The Who – Questors Theatre Sunday 16th February
  • Raga Jam – blues musicians from across the world playing together at Questors Theatre on Sunday 16th February

Full details of all the events at www.ealingmusicand filmfestival.org