Adam Rock, who was a founder of Newington Green Action Group and an active participant in local regeneration for many years, died in April 2010.
His funeral will be on Friday 7th May at 2.30pm at the Unitarian Church and afterwards, there will be drinks in the Nobody Inn.
Adam had been in great pain through illness, for several years, and it is with sorrow that he died after long suffering. We extend our sympathy to his family and thanks for his life which stimulated the formation of our now thriving Action Group.
]]>Adam Rock, who was a founder of Newington Green Action Group and an active participant in local regeneration for many years, died in April 2010.
His funeral will be on Friday 7th May at 2.30pm at the Unitarian Church and afterwards, there will be drinks in the Nobody Inn.
Adam had been in great pain through illness, for several years, and it is with sorrow that he died after long suffering. We extend our sympathy to his family and thanks for his life which stimulated the formation of our now thriving Action Group.
Please send any letters of support to his family via the Unitarian Church on Newington Green. His family have constructed a website to which people can contribute.
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A Happy and Peaceful Christmas and New Year
To all our Members and the Traders who have so kindly donated gifts and helped us to continue the work of improving the local historic environment.
Further news from Jenny and about NGAG's activities may be found in the latest Newsletter
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A Happy and Peaceful Christmas and New Year
To all our Members and the Traders who have so kindly donated gifts and helped us to continue the work of improving the local historic environment.
Further news from Jenny and about NGAG's activities may be found in the latest Newsletter
December 2010
]]>Newington Green Action Group once again ran our annual Jazz on the Green event, continuing the tradition of meeting and making music on the Green, which has continued in various forms for hundreds of years.
]]>Newington Green Action Group once again ran our annual Jazz on the Green event, continuing the tradition of meeting and making music on the Green, which has continued in various forms for hundreds of years.
The weather was kind to us and it was sunny and warm, so the only umbrellas around were being used as sunshades. This may have contributed to our having a record number of people who came to picnic on the Green whilst they enjoyed listening and dancing to the live music provided by Brass Volcanoes the popular Jazz Group who joined us for the third year running.
The musicians opened the afternoon by processing around the Green, visiting the local cafes and acting like Pied Pipers, as they brought people onto the Green. Brass Volcanoes have even written a song for Jazz on the Green, which they first sang in 2008 when we had the Plastic Bag Free Newington Green campaign, with the life-sized whale made of willow withies on the Green. The crowd enjoyed joining in the song 'Don't throw away your plastic bags, or a whale might eat them'.....
During their last set, the musicians played and danced amongst the crowds on the Green and went right into the children's playground, giving them a very direct and fun experience of live music!
Stalls
There were queues at both That Place on the Green and at Trattoria Sapori's stall, both of which did sterling work providing traditional English cream teas, Pimms and ice creams, plus Italian panini and pizzas for hungry members of the audience.
The RSPB ran a stall which where they gave out information about our native bird, wildlife and the RSPB House Sparrow Project, to link in with our WING project. The RSPB also had a number of toys and books available for children and adults. I understand they also gained some new members during the afternoon.
NGAG are keen to encourage cyclists, as another way of helping our environment and our thanks go to the brand new Police Cycle Task Force who volunteered to give out information and to security mark people's bicycles. The police told us that they managed to mark 55 bikes during the afternoon - they worked hard!
Raffle
NGAG would also like to give thanks the local traders who provided lots of great prizes for the raffle and Toni Sapori who helped organise it. You may read the list of prizes and the traders who kindly donated them, in the attachment. The tickets were drawn by Kate Groucutt, one of our local councillors and the money raised will be donated to the charity Action For Children.
NGAG gained some new members and is grateful to all those people who gave donations, which amounted to a fantastic £213, which will go towards the running of the afternoon.
In 2009, Newington Green was entered for a London In Bloom Neighbourhood Award and we received a Merit. This year, we are extending the area involved and a wider area around Newington Green is being entered for an Urban Communities Award, which is also part of the RHS London in Bloom awards scheme.
]]>In 2009, Newington Green was entered for a London In Bloom Neighbourhood Award and we received a Merit. This year, we are extending the area involved and a wider area around Newington Green is being entered for an Urban Communities Award, which is also part of the RHS London in Bloom awards scheme.
Over the years, we have gradually been creating links and running events with other groups and for this year's In Bloom entry we are linking the Newington Green area with the exciting projects taking place at the Mayville Gardening Club and King Henry's Walk Community Garden, so that the judges can see a range of gardening initiatives around the area. The judges will also see some of the local streets, such as Lidfield and Winston Roads that have so beautifully planted up the new street trees' pits and have transformed the look and feeling of community in their roads.
Newington Green Action Group volunteers have worked hard during the year adding new plants to the Green and caring for them We've also had fun planting up the tree pits around Newington Green. We chose to plant the pits in purple and green, to link in with the colours of the suffragette movement that followed in the footsteps of Mary Wollstonecraft, the influential author and early feminist who lived and worked here for a while. We have also included sustainable plants and ones that will support insects with pollen and nectar. Our thanks go LB Islington for all the help and support they have given us with this project.
You Can Help Too!
We need help watering the tree pits and clearing them of rubbish. Although many of the traders are watering planted tree pits, these need a lot of water whilst plants are getting established and we could do with help to give them more water.
You could also help by creating window boxes or hanging baskets, by tidying up your front garden, cutting hedges and clearing any litter from them. Everything will help the area look more cared for - and will feel nicer for us all to live in.
If you would like to get involved and can help us, do please contact us here.
We were really lucky with the weather, which had been forecast as heavy rain and although it was still a bit chilly, it did not rain! There were fun activities and games at the Easter Bunny Event on Newington Green, which were run by LBI Greenspace. Lots of children enjoyed some traditional past times, with story telling, an Easter Egg hunt, egg and spoon races and face painting.
]]>We were really lucky with the weather, which had been forecast as heavy rain and although it was still a bit chilly, it did not rain! There were fun activities and games at the Easter Bunny Event on Newington Green, which were run by LBI Greenspace. Lots of children enjoyed some traditional past times, with story telling, an Easter Egg hunt, egg and spoon races and face painting.
NGAG ran a stall as part of our WING project, at which we gave away a number of items which help the environment in various different ways; birds' nesting boxes and feeders; bee nesting boxes; rowan tree whips; stickers and bird toys; cotton shopping bags and water savers.
We also gave a good number of rowan tree whips away to the Mildmay Gardening Club, The Islington Ecology Centre and the Hackney Tree Nursery. Our thanks go to BBC Breathing Places and Thames Water for their generous support which enabled us to do this.
People very generously gave us donations for the wildlife boxes etc that we were giving out and we ended up with over £95 in donations. We also gained three new NGAG Members. Thanks Folks!
Growing Communities, which runs the Stoke Newington Farmer's Market, came along with Maisie the Cow their fun milkfloat and provided information about the Market and their Organic Veg Box scheme.
The Mildmay Gardening Club also had a stall where they did a good trade selling some flower and vegetable plants that they had grown, making over £90 for the Club.
That Place on the Green opened at the kiosk and provided drinks, snacks, ices and contributed to the fun and games.
NGAG Volunteers followed up this event by planting some native primroses, foxgloves, a hawthorn tree and other wildlife-friendly plants on Newington Green. We had aimed to plant these at the Easter Bunny event itself but we were so busy that nothing got planted that day!
3 April 2010
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Mary Wollstonecraft, one of the very first feminists, lived and taught in Newington Green N16 for a period of her life, where she was much influenced by free thinking and radical poets and philosophers amongst the Dissenters at the Unitarian Church on the Green. Wollstonecraft's first book was written at Newington Green and 'Thoughts on the Education of Daughters' was published in 1787. Her most famous book 'A Vindication of the Rights of Woman', which was one of the first books to discuss feminist ideals and issues, was published in 1792.
There is more information about Mary Wollstonecraft's time in Newington Green, in 'The Village That Changed the World' by Alex Allardyce.
Wollstonecraft was one of the first people to publicly state that 'Contending for the rights of women, my main argument is built on this simple principle, that if she be not prepared by education to become the companion of man, she will stop the progress of knowledge, for truth must be common to all, or it will be inefficacious with respect to its influence on general practice'. Wollstonecraft would no doubt have been pleased to know that there is now an annual International Women's Day, which is celebrated on 8 March and that it draws attention to women's issues around the world, including themes of equality, human rights and political awareness, as advocated by the United Nations.
Locally, the day was marked in various ways, including an installation on Albion Parade N16 that celebrated women's traditional craft skills in a very colourful and enjoyable way. This was created by the Stoke Newington Women's Institute, so our thanks go to them for turning a small and neglected garden into an interesting space that people enjoyed looking at.
8 March 2010
On International Women's Day 2011, the 100th anniversary of the formation of IWD, the Newington Green Action Group launched a new website dedicated to a project to erect a memorial sculpture to Mary Wollstonecraft on Newington Green. Please help us raise enough money to realise this dream:
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Alex Allardyce, Chair of the Newington Green Action Group and Annette Percy, Chair of the Trustees of Newington Green Unitarians each planted a Crab Apple tree on 22 February '09, as a conclusion to the 2008 anniversary celebrations of:
This was followed by a small reception in the Unitarian Church
The edible Crab Apple trees will also play their part in Newington Green Action Group’s ‘Wildlife in Newington Green’ (WING) project by supporting insect and bird populations and will complement the North side replanting of the Green, which has just commenced.
WING Nestbox Event
Alongside the Tree Planting event, NGAG held a very enjoyable Nestbox Event as part of their WING project.
Park Rangers Chris, Bupesh and Julian helped us, both with the tree planting and with making wooden bird boxes with children, who were obviously enjoying themselves. The children then put a little nesting material into the boxes and took them away to hang up in their gardens, in order to provide shelter for nesting birds along the green wildlife corridors that we are beginning to create.
The children also had great fun filling containers with nesting materials made from an assortment of sheep's wool, hay and moss. Some of these have been hung around Newington Green itself and a good number will be put up all around our green corridors.
Thanks to grants from the Breathing Places Big Lottery Fund and o2, we were able to give away some bird and bee nesting boxes, plus bird feeders, which will be put up in locations around the Newington Green area.
LB Islington provided us with some native tree whips to give out: wild pear, hawthorn, sea buckthorn and blackthorn. All of these trees will provide food and shelter for wildlife and some food for humans - so we might even find people making jam and sloe gin around here again, some time in the future.
We had a raffle, which did well.
We had several people joining up as Friends of NGAG, a number of people kindly gave us donations and a good number put their names down as being interested in looking after the new street trees when they're planted.
NGAG were pleased to be able to donate some nestboxes and nesting materials to Newington Green School and the Mildmay Gardeners' Club, plus tree whips to the Gardeners' Club and to King Henry's Walk Community Garden.
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