Last week was a funny week, no engagements over the weekend, working on Tuesday, with a short visit to the European Neighbours Day at Venture Housing, which went very well, and then there was Wednesday. Wednesday was madness, I barely had enough room to write all the appointments in the space provided!
I started at 9.30am, a visit to Kensington Regeneration at the Job Bank where Natalie Nicholas, Alan Kelly and I interviewed the three organisations who had submitted tenders to run next year's Kensington Remembers, Holocaust and Genocide Remembrance Day event. Good quality entrants, we are looking forward to working with the successful bidder on next year's event.
We finished about 12.30pm and I rushed over to Venture Housing on Boaler Street for a Putting Our Neighbourhood First meeting. This brings together partners and agencies working across the L6 area of the ward, principally Molyneux and Elm Park. Our allotment plans for the Tudor Street/Cambria Street area are coming along very well and we have had support too from Parry Estates which is really important to our success. I think this work will commence very soon, we are setting up a working group to organise it all properly, more on this later.
We also talked about the successful Sparkles Day in April which included a Kenny Crufts dog competition which Jane Kennedy and Liam Robinson were part of the judging panel. It was a very popular event which we will want to run again.
The next Sparkles Day is August 1st, so if you live in Kensington or Fairfield and want to join in with our mass litter picking, get in touch!
I had to leave the meeting a few minutes before the end because I was due at the Register Office for 2.30pm to perform a citizenship ceremony - we were joined by the new City Solicitor whose department the Registrars fall into. I think he was moved by the service and I know the staff were pleased he took the time to come along. We had a few observers from the Home Office too, staff who will have worked on some of the naturalisation applications of the new Brits.
I popped into the Municipal Buildings for a chat with our Leader, then went off to C7for a meeting of the Neighbourhood Services Task Group which is a part of Kensington Regeneration and is attended by all partners and agencies engaged in environmental work in the new deal area. Apparently a load of cobbles have gone missing from one of the Kenny Fields streets. This is becoming a real problem, some flags have been stolen elsewhere in the area, blatant thieves pulling up in vans, levering them up and taking them away. I think the cobbles might be retrievable though, as they disappeared as part of roadworks so we have a good idea who took them. We also discussed the success or otherwise of some section 46 notices, designed to enable LCC to prosecute people who don't manage their waste disposal properly.
Wendy and I had half an hour to kill before our next meeting, so we popped into McDonalds for a coffee. It was really strange being there without the radio station. I kept expecting Steve or Sheila to appear.
At 7pm we were at the Elm Park TRA meeting. We were sorry to hear that Margaret Smith is still very poorly in hospital, we send our love and best wishes to her and all the family, and hopes for a speedy recovery. It can be hard for a TRA when key members cannot take part but the officers of Elm Park are keeping the work going and it was a useful meeting. Our only real disappointment is the continued failure of Enterprise to empty the bins in Parton Street, sometimes you have to wonder if it is deliberate, or perhaps I should say, wilful.
I got home about 12 hours after I left, and popped down to the Richmond to see Colin acting as quiz master. I think a bit of diary management might be required in future, I dont want to do everything all on one day!
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