Agewell Computer Club at The Lawns.

Internet for Beginners: Monday 9 January 2012 (2 to 5 pm).

Our Monday Agewell Social Network is the best way to start with us – especially if you are a beginner. We think learning about the Internet should always be fun – so we don’t do anything that is boring or difficult. Join us now to start learning about email, the World Wide Web, and everything that has digital in its name.

We don’t have anything specific planned for next Monday 9 January, because it will be our first Agewell Social Network session. We need to give people time to find out about it, and we would like to ask you what you want. Here are some of the ideas we have been discussing …

• An Agewell blog, probably a bit like the website being made by the Hackney Healthy Eating Project. All the blog posts can be done by email alone. To contribute, all you have to know is how to send an email. So we can fill it up with digital photographs, audio, links to websites and videos – anything you like. It’s a really good way to learn how to use email, and get a visible result on the web too. We would have a different theme each month.
• More First Click sessions, carrying on where we left off with the BBC Food site – and then investigating BBC Wildlife and BBC Gardening sites.
• Internet Radio Disco Party – once a month, not necessarily at The Lawns – combined with our own Internet talk radio (Radio Agewell – it already exists).
• A Monday afternoon Skype hub, for people who are stuck at home.

We will probably have some more ideas before Monday, but we would like to have yours too. Please email your brainwave to acc@lawns.org.uk .

January to March preview.

We have funding for an extra Agewell Computer Club afternoon session each week, for the whole quarter. Our expanded program will be planned with the expectations of our funders very much in mind – we are aiming for tangible and visible evidence of how we support Hackney residents aged 50 to 65. We hope you will join us on both afternoons.

Monday afternoons (2 to 5 pm) – starting 9 January 2012.

Agewell Social Network.

• Monday afternoons will be beginner-friendly, and will be tied much more closely to other Agewell in Hackney events. First Click, Internet for Beginners, and most of the Agewell Computer Club party-like and social activities will happen on Monday afternoons. They won’t all be at The Lawns.
• The main new activity on Monday afternoon will be the Agewell Social Network. We will be making a website about Agewell in Hackney, with photographs, audio and video. It will be similar in many ways to the Hackney Healthy Eating Project program, but with a different theme each month.

Tuesday afternoons (2 to 5 pm) .

Agewell Community Computing.

• Tuesday afternoon Agewell Computer Club will continue as it is now, but with just one main activity each week, for example – workshops and short courses which work best without a lot of background noise.

Agewell drop-in.

• As always, the front area will be reserved for general drop-in by Agewell in Hackney members on both afternoons.

This is an entirely new way of learning about computers and other digital technology. We take our class into a local school, where the learning will be led by a tutor from The Lawns, while sixth-form students will be volunteers to help you. The computer facilities in schools are usually much better than anything we are used to. This is a really good thing to do!

To join, it is only necessary to be at least 60 years old. You don’t have to be a Hackney resident.

The next two groups will start Wednesday 11 January 2012 and continue until Wednesday 29 February 2012.

The schools, dates and times.

• Stoke Newington School & Sixth Form, Clissold Road, N16 9EX (Google map).
  Wednesday afternoons, 2.30 to 4 pm.
• BSix, Brooke House Sixth Form College, Kenninghall Road, London E5 8BP (Google map).
  Wednesday afternoons, 3.30 to 5 pm.

All places at both schools have been filled.

For more information, please read the Hackney Silver Surfers post ‘MiCommunity’.

A message from Lisa Johansson (Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design) …

Our names are Lisa Johansson and Gianpaolo Fusari, we are research associates in the Age & Ability Lab at the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design, Royal College of Art. We focus on inclusive design and aim to always put people in the centre of our process.

We are currently looking into understanding what are the different roles people may have in improving local communities, and how digital media, such as computers, internet, smart phones etc, can help them.

Digital technology and the internet have completely changed the way we communicate and also the way we form, maintain and participate in communities. Staying in touch, sharing and collaborating has never been so easy and as a result many communities now exist as online communities.

From our research we have found that limited skills and frustration with fast changing technologies can result in some groups having less of a presence in local projects and initiatives. Civic participation and creative entrepreneurship are increasingly important to society, government and business.

What we would like to talk to you in particular is your experiences in life in general and with technology in particular. We have a couple of easy exercises that help us talk about how you engage with community and technology and this is what we would like to do.

This project will investigate ways of enhancing daily life for people in their communities through digital media.

Note from Agewell Computer Club.

• This project is exactly what Agewell Computer Club is all about – finding ways to use digital technology to enhance the lives we already have, and strengthen the communities we already live in. By the way – digital technology means the Internet, computers, smartphones, and almost anything with ‘digital’ in its name – new ways to make contact between people cheaper and faster. We know it is easier than many people think – but it should be a lot easier than it actually is.
• Lisa will be visiting us at The Lawns next Tuesday 6 December 2011, at 3 pm.
• To make sure you can share your opinions and experiences with Lisa, please reserve a place by sending an email to acc@lawns.org.uk (and please don’t forget to mention the reason for your email).

A message from Open Dalston …

OPEN Dalston are joining forces with the London Mural Preservation Society to launch a campaign to restore and protect the iconic Hackney Peace Carnival Mural and to organise a series of events which celebrate its history and spirit.

Reclaim The Mural is a year-long project by art collective The Work in Progress at the Whitechapel Art Gallery and this Sunday their ‘Take Us To Your Mural’ series of talks will reach Dalston and help launch our campaign. The event will start with an overview of the project by artists from the collective, before Marie Murray from OPEN Dalston gives a brief introduction to the Peace Mural. Then Ruth Miller from the London Mural Preservation Society will talk about the background to the mural before we move to the Dalston Eastern Curve Garden, where over tea and coffee there will be an opportunity to ask more questions and to get involved with the mural campaign.

So if you would like to know more about the history of this much loved Dalston landmark and get involved in the restoration campaign, please come along on Sunday.

No need to book, just turn up at the mural on Sunday 6 November 2011, 3 pm. Even if it rains, the event will go ahead in the Dalston Eastern Curve Garden (15 Dalston Lane, E8 3DF).

A message from Angelika Egger at AgeUK …

Our NB:

• Tavis House is not far to travel. The address is 1-6 Tavistock Square, WC1H 9NA.
• Link to the Tavis House Google map: g.co/maps/e7nc3 .

Join us in celebrating diversity and achievements of people living in Hackney.

AgeWell in Hackney celebrates Black History Month.

• Tuesday 25 October 2011, 6 to 10 pm.
• Fellows Court Community Centre, Weymouth Terrace, E2 8LR.
  (buses: 394, 242, 149, 67, 243).
• Social event with a fun filled evening arranged for your entertainment.
• Delicious food and refreshments.

Booking is essential: call Carol on 020 7241 5908 .

Creating a digital legacy for Ridley Road market.

Did you visit Ridley Road Market in the 1940s, 50s, 60s, 70s and/or 80s?

Do you have memories of buying kosher produce on the market?

Can you remember when you first saw a mango or yam on the market stalls?

A Taste of Hackney is an oral history project celebrating the history of Ridley Road Market as told by the people that have lived, worked and shopped there during the 20th century.

We are looking for people aged 50+ to take part in the project.

If you’re interested in sharing your memories and stories about the market, have recipes to share, or simply want to tell others about what the market means to you, we want to hear from you.

Want to take part?

Get in touch with Victoria …

• Email: victoria@adifferentdrumproductions.com  .

Taste of Hackney has funding!

NB: the original date for this was 9 August (we had to postpone it).

Victoria Coker (Different Drum Productions) has told us that the funding bid for ‘A Taste of Hackney’ has been successful, and the project will start soon.

Here is an extract from our original post on 5 May 2011 …

A Taste of Hackney is an innovative intergenerational project that charts the different contributions made by ethnic minorities to the culinary landscape of Hackney.

Participants will be trained in oral history, research skills, photography, web-design, blogging and app design and filmmaking to provide material to create the website, smartphone app (iPhone and Android), and exhibition.

The project will explore the Ridley Road market’s history from its humble origins in the mid 19th Century to its evolution as a hub of migration throughout the 20th Century.

Victoria is coming back to The Lawns to get you involved!

This project is a unique opportunity to learn and understand the Internet by being part of it, rather than sitting around listening to somebody else telling you what it is. Internet beginners can do this as well as anyone else. If you would like to join the project, or if you want to find out more about it, come and meet Victoria at The Lawns on Tuesday 20 September 2011 (3 pm).

By the way, Victoria’s latest flyer is on the web: Taste of Hackney flyer.pdf . She says “it’s rather generic and makes no reference to the truck load of new skills participants will learn.”

Join the Radio Freedom Pass Party.

NB: the original date for this was 9 August (we had to postpone it).

For the last few weeks, we have been showing you how to find and listen to small, independent Internet radio stations (eg: SHOUTcast Internet Radio for beginners, VLC media player and Icecast Internet radio). Now we would like you to join us in bringing to life a new community Internet radio station. It already exists. It’s provisionally called Radio Freedom Pass, and it was launched (very successfully, with a different name) 30 July at the Piccadilly Community Centre.

It’s surprisingly easy to do. You don’t need a broadcast license or special equipment – just an ordinary computer, a cheap microphone and free software. The only cost has been SHOUTcast server hosting – £5 for a basic Pay As You Go account which will last us several months.

The free software we use to stream out to the Internet is Winamp – the same program we use for streaming in from the Internet – listening to SHOUTcast stations. Winamp is on every computer at The Lawns.

Even the newest absolute beginner can get involved in Internet radio – that’s why we are doing it.

A pilot broadcast from The Lawns, Tuesday 20 September 2011.

The launch event suggested to us that community radio might be best when broadcast from places where there is a crowd – for example – a meeting, a workshop, an exhibition, a party – or an end of term event at The Lawns. As we are expecting a lot of people to come The Lawns on 20 September anyway, we thought we might wrap up our series of online music workshops with an Internet radio party – and broadcast the result. So here are some reasons to be here …

• Help create a party mood.
• Talk to the microphone – we hope to have somebody really good to show you how to present and interview. You can try doing it your way, as an interviewer, or an interviewee.
• If you have a collection of MP3 music (the digital format for most online music), we will show you how you can become an Internet DJ with your own radio show. At the moment, we can’t broadcast music ourselves,as we don’t have the necessary music licences – but we can show you how easy it is.
• If your music is on vinyl or CD, it could probably be digitised to MP3 quite easily. We could talk about that too.
• Tell us your ideas for an Internet radio station run by older people.

What time, and where?

We won’t start before 3 pm – in a corner of The Lawns, while everything else is going on. When we all have nothing else to say, we will switch to a SHOUTcast music station until 6 pm. If you want to listen online instead of coming to The Lawns, visit radio.agewell.org.uk after 3 pm.

As part of Age UK’s ongoing work to encourage older people to take up technology like the Internet, the charity is going to be involved in a number of media campaigns in autumn 2011.

The main theme that runs through all of these campaigns is about encouraging people who know how to use technology like the Internet, to pass on their knowledge to an older person they know.

Have you ever helped anyone get online – a friend, a neighbour, a relative, or somebody you met at the Agewell Computer Club? If you have – would you be interested in helping the Age UK campaign by speaking to the media – for example, local press, radio or TV?

By lending your voice to the Age UK campaign, you could help a lot more people get online!

If you think you could help, or would like to ask questions, please contact us (by email: acc@lawns.org.uk ) in the first instance.

Would you like to share your memories of yesterday with the youth of today?

A message from Dave Ramdial (Hold It Down) …

Hold It Down is currently looking for 12 Caribbean elders that would to take part in a project to share their experiences, stories and memories of their journey from the past to the present with young people.

If you are interested, or know someone that may be – please contact Dave Ramdial on 0208 525 0600 or email dave@holditdown.org.uk for further information.

If you are reading this, you are invited …

• Where?
  Piccadilly Community Centre.
• When?
  Friday 15 July 2011 (6 pm until 9 pm or later).
• Sounds of Hackney!
  Roy Fitzroy Liontech sound system … ska, reggae, dub and soul from the 1960s until now.

… but we really, really need to know in advance how many people are going to be there … so please tell us if you are going to come – in an email to party@seniors.org.uk .

A message from Gillett Square …

Dave Ramdial, director of ‘Hold It Down’ will be at The Lawns on Tuesday 12 July 2011 (12 to 1 pm) to meet Caribbean elders (ie: 50 or over). So, if you are a Caribbean elder – please come and hear what Dave has to say about this inter-generational project. It’s not just socially important – it’s also a great opportunity for you to learn some new digital skills.

If you would like to contact Dave personally, his phone number is 020 8525 0600, and his email address is dave@holditdown.org.uk .

Here is Dave’s original message …

Celebrate National Volunteers Week at Age Concern Hackney’s Annual Summer Party.

Hosted by Goldman Sachs.

Volunteers and Agewellers – please join us! You are all invited!

• African dance performance.
• Raffle prizes.
• Food and drink.