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Roaming radio station comes to Chiswick House & Gardens
Grow FM, a summer programme of activities and events exploring the theme of “community as health”, is coming to Chiswick House & Gardens this summer.
The brainchild of curatorproducers Yinka Danmole and Tadeo Lopez-Sendon, Grow FM is an experimental programme featuring new commissions by local and international artists and a roaming pop-up radio station, powered by the community for the community, broadcasting from Chiswick House & Gardens throughout the summer.
Grow FM is inspired by West London pirate radio stations, which became a lifeline for disenfranchised communities in the 1990s, as well as by Victorian Chiswick House & Gardens residents, the Tuke brothers, whose radical approach to mental health centred exchange and dialogue as a means of connecting with their patients. Grow FM will encourage artists, host participants and audiences to come together physically and online, enabling new conditions for cultural exchange and production to thrive, especially for those groups and communities often overlooked. Supported by the London Borough of Hounslow, as part of its Summer of Culture, the project includes paid placements for three young creatives as trainee audio producers.
Tadeo Lopez-Sendon said: “In an age where we witness the erosion of trust and social connections, Grow FM aims to re-centre community at the heart of social life.”
Yinka Danmole added: “Inspired by Chiswick House & Gardens’ history, with the Tuke brothers’ radical Victorian approach to mental health practices, the Grow FM programme explores ways of nurturing this precious public space for the local community, for new collectives and for cultural production.”
Xanthe Arvanitakis, director of Chiswick House & Gardens Trust, said: “We know firsthand from Growing Together at Chiswick House, our thriving community engagement programme, that a strong sense of community is integral to our health and mental wellbeing. We’re delighted to be working closely with the local people of Hounslow and this talented group of creatives to support Grow FM for improved health and wellbeing for all of us.”
Wellness event proves to be popular!
Sahara Sisterhood hosted a wellness event for women at the Grasshoppers Rugby Club in Isleworth sponsored by the Metropolitan Police on Thursday March 10, 2022.
The organisation said 77 delegates had registered for the event.
A spokesperson for the organisation said: “At Sahara Sisterhood, we always request feedback at the end of the event through an evaluation form that is distributed to all delegates to complete and return to the hosts.
In line with our normal practice, we distributed the evaluation forms to all delegates and these were collated at the end. In addition to the feedback forms,
all three hosts were given encouraging feedback throughout the day. One of the team members is a HR director who has extensive experience in managing this area and is passionate about improving organisational performance and seeking feedback to continuously learn to improve our service.
The delegate feedback was overwhelmingly positive and it was the first time Sahara Sisterhood had worked with the Metropolitan Police. The conference was well structured and planned with a variety of activities including presenters, meditation, creativity, music, activities and discussion in breakout sessions.
Based on the feedback and comments received on the day, the conference was a huge success. This was achieved by the range of different activities throughout the day involving delegate participation where they were encouraged to present their findings.
Overall, the event was a huge success and we had lots of positive feedback. We believe we provide a platform for the Met Police to be introduced and engage with the local communities in a nonconfrontational manner by allowing them to build bigger and stronger relationships with people that need their services.
We would propose to host another conference in June, September and December as a very minimum to build upon the relationships between the Metropolitan Police and the community.”
SEGRO mark 100+2 year anniversary
More than 300 people came together in April at the Royal Horticultural Halls in central London to mark 100 years since leading warehousing and industrial property developer SEGRO was established in 1920. However, eagle-eyed readers may notice that the event actually took place on the 102nd anniversary of its foundation after the Covid pandemic delayed proceedings by two years. The Slough Trading Company, which later became SEGRO, was formed after the First World War following the purchase of a military vehicle repair depot in Slough from the UK government which was used to adapt war-damaged vehicles for civilian use. The founders quickly realised that the company’s long term future would be in the leasing of warehousing and industrial property and as such the Slough Trading Estate was born. Over the decades The Slough Trading Estate became Europe’s largest industrial estate under single ownership, home to hundreds of companies and a corner piece of the local community, and SEGRO has grown its property portfolio, including the development and acquisition of several properties in the London Borough of Hounslow, to become Europe’s largest property company by value.
Hounslow and West London Chambers of Commerce, CEO Alan Rides, and COO Sally Smith, were delighted to be able to attend the evening and share in this milestone celebration.
Photo by Maude Frédérique Lavoie on Unsplash
Serving Our Superheroes founder launches new venture
It has been two years since Sarah Jane Gardner set up Serving Our Superheroes at the start of the pandemic.
It started out as a project to help prevent the cross-contamination of COVID-19, by providing laundry bags to the NHS and other frontline care workers during the pandemic.
Serving Our Superheroes now supplies washbags filled with toiletries to the NHS and a host of other items to homeless people, refugees, victims of domestic violence and other people in need.
The project has been hugely successful, with more than 153,000 items donated and over 150,000 people supported. Now Sarah has launched a spin-off venture, as she explains. “We’ve updated our constitution to go international and I’ve sent many dresses abroad in partnership with Dress a Girl around the World, as well as continuing to serve our community locally. Our latest project, to supply trousers to hospitals, has had really good feedback from the hospitals and I’ve been asked for more. As a result, I’ve now set up a spin-off group, Pants for Patients. The hope is to get trousers into hospitals around the world.
It’s the little things that make a difference and provide dignity in people’s time of need. We’ve already been providing washbags so that people can clean their teeth and have a shower in hospital.
However, imagine you arrive in hospital and you’ve been in an accident and your clothes are ripped, or have had to be cut off. The hospital gowns are open and don’t afford much dignity. With the trousers, patients can cover up and move around. They’re adjustable to fit all sizes and are loose so they’re easy to get on and off. They’re great for all patients, including those who’ve been in accidents, maternity patients who’ve had an unexpected C-section and need loose trousers, and the elderly who may live alone and have a long stay in hospital with no change of clothes. There are so many people living alone or in poverty so these trousers can help. They could also be worn by nurses in the community in third world countries or given out at schools where people can’t afford clothing.”
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