• Cut household bills                          • Make new friends
• Environmental benefits                    • Health benefits
• Visits to eco-houses

No one can do everything – but we can all do something!

BAG is currently recruiting for 2 EcoTeams to start Mid-November. There are only 6 more spaces to fill – first come first served.

EcoTeams are free to all residents in the Blackhorse Road area.

What is an Eco Team?
An EcoTeam is a group of 6-8 local people who meet once a month for five months to learn simple yet effective ways of conserving household energy and reducing bills while helping to save the planet. Small changes can make a big difference by living more sustainably.

What is involved?
Meetings are informal, friendly and are organised to be within walking distance of your home. EcoTeam participants meet to discuss choices for shopping, energy, transport and water – and you can try the ideas that appeal to you.
You also monitor how much rubbish & recycling you generate and your domestic use of energy. You’ll receive our information folder filled with tips, facts and internet links to help you and your team members.

How much time will it take?
About 2 hours a month, including the meetings and measurements.

Does it work?
Yes! Past teams have achieved great environmental savings:
Waste – 20%, Gas/heating – 21%, Electricity – 7%, Water – 15%
Household annual average saving of £148

Joining an EcoTeam
If you want to be part of an EcoTeam, just let us know your details and you will be invited along to a short initial meeting. The local team leader will show you a DVD and explain how the EcoTeams initiative works in your area. You then decide if you want to participate. It’s as simple as that and, remember, it’s free.

To join or to find out more
Please email Irina

National website: www.globalactionplan.org.uk
Registered charity number 1026148

Historical note!

When the first reservoirs were built during the 19th century, negotiations with the East London Waterworks Company to achieve compensation for parishioners who had Lammas Grazing Rights over the land were held at the Ferry Boat Inn, in Forest Road, Walthamstow, which was also once famous for its Whitsun Ales. When houses were built in Forest Road, a stipulation in the deeds was that no funfair was to be held and alcohol was not to be sold or consumed on the premises!

Meet for lunch at the Ferry Boat Inn from midday and the walk will set off from the car-park at 2.15pm. This is essentially a gentle stroll for fun, enjoying the ‘season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.’ See the marshes from a different perspective and also find out about the history and wildlife of the reservoirs.�
Stout footwear and appropriate clothing is necessary. It can be very cold and windy!

All are welcome for this free event, but unfortunately due to Thames Water’s safety requirements no dogs or children under 8 years of age are allowed in the reservoirs area. Also, no bicycles, wheelchairs or alcohol are permitted. The reservoirs are classified as a workplace and are therefore subject to various restrictions.

Next Saturday 11 October sees the return of Apple day at the Vestry House Museum. The event will run from 11am until 4pm and is organised by ELOG (East London Organic Gardeners). It will showcase everything apple including the hundreds of varieties that exist, apple juicing, apple bobbing, apple tasting, apple bonsai, heritage apple trees for sale, homemade apple cakes to name but a few activities on offer on the day. Walthamstow LETs (Waltham Forest Local Exchange Trading Scheme) will also have a stall promoting their skill swapping scheme and the Waltham Forest Children’s Art Project will be providing the entertainment for the children with an opportunity to make apple fridge magnets as well as drawing apples. For more information please contact Adrian Stannard at adrian.stannard@btinternet.com

From the 6th to the 14th of September the E17 Art Trail is back and bigger than ever.

9 days, 138 events and exhibitions in 86 venues all across Walthamstow.

Spaces all over town are be hosting free events with the work of hundreds of local artists on display. Pick up a map and explore.

Visit www.e17arttrail.co.uk for a full events listing.

Highlights include:

Art will be literally hanging ripe to pick from the trees, find rock stars (or at least their photographs) in the Grove Cafe, designers marketing their wares at the Vestry House, a cocktail party at Inky Cuttlefish Studios and a DIY craft night by the East London Craft Guerilla’s.

Sun 14th – Art, Buses, Trains, Cars and Fire engines at the Pump House Museum (a rare chance to visit while its being restored). They’ll have a Bouncy Castle and other Fun attractions for the family. Hot/Cold drinks and snacks in the canteen and BBQ weather permitting. There will also be exhibits by local artists.

Two exhibitions celebrate Walthamstow Dogs and campaign to stop developers turing it into tower blocks. Katherine Green documents the “Last Days at the Dogs”, while the Laurence family have apparently covered the exterior of their house with racing greyhounds for the weekend!

Antiscrap asked artists to give vent to their feelings about the state of the Borough. Celebrating life here, where all the cinemas are closed, there is no arts centre, the theatre is going to be demolished along with all the public toilets, tower blocks are foisted upon the community and library books are burnt, even the dog track is going to the dogs, but on the bright side we do get a giant public television screen.

Check out all the days and details below. For more visit their swish looking new website.

All workshops are at the Hornbeam Centre, 458 Hoe Street, Walthamstow unless otherwise specified. Prices indicated are for waged first then low income and unwaged.
Registration is appreciated and for sessions marked with * numbers are limited so please let us know if you are coming: email us or call 020 8558 6880.

Wednesday 20th August (3-4.30pm)*
Baking for kids (age 4-10) £1.50/£1
Come and have a go: mix, chop, stir and bake simple biscuits, cakes or smoothies, then enjoy the results!

Saturday 23rd August (4-5.30pm)*
Jam making £3/£2
Home-made tastes better… Discover the basic methods of this long-established way of capturing fruity goodness in a jar.

Wednesday 27th August (7-9pm)
Wine from the hedgerows: introduction to homebrew £3/£2
Brewing your own is cheaper and more satisfying. Find out how to make a fine wine from fruit you can find in the hedges, and get your cider started in time for the swap. Or just sample some we made earlier!

Sunday 14th September (11am-1pm)
Introduction to food growing £3/£2
Start early for next year’s swap – find out the basic principles of organic growing and pick up some simple tips to get you started growing your own. At Organiclea’s growing site, Drysdale Avenue, E4

Wednesday 17th September*
Kitchen pharmacy: using herbs for common remedies
3pm herbal walk – to be confirmed, call for details £3/£2
6-8pm preparation workshop £3/£2 £5/£3 for both sessions
The herbs and plants that you can grow in your garden or allotment site have many uses beyond the cooking pot. This session will show you how to prepare your own herbal treatments and take advantage of the many benefits herbs can bring to your health.

Saturday 27th September (4-5.30pm)
Seed saving £3/£2
Find out why we save seed, learn the basic principles and gain confidence. Then have a go yourself and become part of a local outlawed seed saving mission!

Saturday 4th October (4-5.30pm)*
Pickles and chutneys £3/£2
This workshop will take a peep at traditional uses of preserves and chutneys in different cultures. An opportunity to jar up goodness from locally grown and foraged fruit. Come along and share your recipes and ideas.

Saturday 4th October
Scrumping apples ‘n’ pears pick ‘n’ press day (Free)
11am intro and picking (meet at Hornbeam, come by bicycle if possible)
2.30pm juicing
Fruit grows in abundance in Walthamstow and the scrumping project helps to ensure it doesn’t go to waste. Come and take part in a picking session and using the apple press, and have a taste of the freshest juice you can get…

Thursday 9th October (7-9pm)*
Cake baking £3/£2
Learn a simple recipe for dairy free cake which you can adapt and experiment with to add your favourite fruits and flavours.

Saturday 11th October (11am-4pm)
Apple Day (Free)
Apples galore at Vestry House Museum, Vestry Road, Walthamstow – juice, fruit, games and information for all ages.

Saturday 11th October (12-2pm)
Seed sprouting drop-in at the Hornbeam market stall
Even closer than a balcony is space for one of the most nutritious, fast foods you can grow. Learn this simple growing skill – and produce a crop that will save you £££s.

Saturday 11th October
Raw food talk 6pm and pot luck supper 7pm (Free)
Find out how healthy and tasty raw food can be; bring something to share for the supper.

Thursday 16th October
World Food Day discussion evening (Free – donations for food)
7.30pm, with food served from 6.30pm
On the day designated to mark food as “a requisite for survival and well-being and a fundamental human necessity”, take part in a discussion with Simon Fairlie, editor of The Land, to look at how we can break the corporate clutch on our food chain and how we can feed ourselves sustainably.

Saturday 18th October 2-4pm)
The Great Local Food Swap (Free)
Bring your swapping goodies for registration from 12pm
Swap your grown-produce for somebody elses pickles and bakes in a locally celebrated “good food swap“. It’s about sharing food you’ve made, grown, picked or found. It’s a chance to show off your produce and share good food by swapping what you’ve brought with other people, without the need for money changing hands.

The Blackhorse Action Group Fun Day was a huge hit last Saturday (17th May).  Children of all ages enjoyed learning juggling skills, painting flowerpots, making badges and origami, having a go on the ‘energy bike’, and having their face painted by Big Brother’s Carol Vincent.

Meanwhile their parents had the chance to find out what else they could get involved with in in the local area, from community gardening and ‘time banking’ (a kind of skill swap) to saving energy at home and campaigning against unsuitable tower block proposals.  They could also watch a film about Walthamstow market, try their hand in the raffle or quiz (prizes donated by local businesses), or just sit back, relax, and chat to their neighbours over a cup of tea and a cake or some delicious home-cooked Indian food.  

Here’s a short version of the Walthamstow Market film:

Finally many went home from the event, which was held in the Douglas Eyre Sports Pavilion, proudly clutching books and toys from the ‘give and take’ and St James Library Campaign stalls, or even free paint or free kid’s bicycles, kindly supplied by the Forest Recycling Project.

Irina Hoss, of BAG’s Entertainment Working Group, said “We are delighted with how well the day went – I overheard quite a few kids saying stubbornly ‘I don’t want to go home!’.  The point of our residents association is to work together to improve the quality of life in our area, and events like this are so important – we hope to have a street party in September to build on our success, as well as a range of other events.”

There was so much going on, it was amazing. We had jugglers, a Kids’ corner knee deep in paints, paper and scissors, stalls giving away goodies -even bikes!- right left and centre, face painting (THANKS Carol!) and everyone had a really great time. We’ll post a fuller report and some of the fantastic pictures taken once we’ve finished the washing up!

But right now, a great big THANK YOU to Colin, Keeper at the Douglas Eyre Playing Fields, who made the pavilion available to us for free. We promise, Colin, that we’ll organise that quiz/karaoke/barn dance soon!

And a whopper of a THANK YOU to Irina (and Caroline, Nuria and others from BAG) for organizing it – I’ve not seen smiles that wide on so many kids’ faces in a long time! And there was so much community spirit that we had heaps of people sign up to our initiatives, such as timebanking.

(Oh, and THANKS to the Singh family who brought a vast and delicious chickpea curry with accompaniments at just the right time at the end of the evening, and then helped us carry all the day’s debris home!)

Signing off now, but we’ll get more about Super Saturday out soon!

Don’t forget that BAG is having a right old shindig on 17 May at the Douglas Eyre Playing Fields pavilion.

Doors open at 3pm, and there’s so much to do:

• Fun activities for kids
• Give and Take: bring clothes and books to swap
• Film: The Power of Community
• Discover what’s happening in your area!
• Guided BAT walk at sunset
• Bar
• Musical Entertainment
• Quiz
• Raffle

If you can, bring your favourite dish to share!

Download the flyer! Stick it on a tree near you!

For more information email: entertainment@blackhorseactiongroup.org.uk

If you are interested in getting involved with organising this evening then email Irina Hoss.