Agewell Social Network at The Lawns.

Would you like to be in a dance film? Are you aged 50 or over?

East London Dance is making a short dance film about the heritage and people of Dalston and we are looking for dancers aged 50 or over.

We are running a workshop at The Sharp End (11 Richmond Road, Dalston, E8 3HY) on Monday 25 January 2010, 12.15 – 1.45 pm.

You will meet artistic director for the project Colin Poole, and film maker Dean Stewart and try out some ideas.

To be involved you must available during the week of Monday 8 February when filming will take place. All filming will be done on sites around Dalston during that one week.

See you there!

If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact Emma Kerr, Creative Projects Manager on emma@eastlondondance.org or 020 8279 1052.

Hackney Routes is a family history project with the aim to support local people to record and document their ancestors and descendants from Africa and the Caribbean by exploring the inter-connection between Hackney and the international dimension which have shaped family history and cultural identity locally.

The project will work with individuals and family members who live or have strong family connections with the borough. Participants must be willing to develop a case study based on interviews and research of an aspect of their family history which can be shared with others in the borough.

We are looking for people who will have an interest in family history, commitment to write or be interviewed as part of the case study and to attend sessions.

There will be sessions on using archives/records, preserving documents and photographs, creative writing, interviewing and the importance of DNA. The end product will be case studies on the Hackney Route blog/website. Future plans could be the development of a family history network, potential future exhibition and publication.

Participants will have a chose of choosing one or more areas to focus on their family history and the connections with Hackney:

Being in Hackney.

• When our family first came to Hackney.
• Spirituality/Places of worship.
• Night clubbing, raving and house parties.
• Our front room.
• Living in Hackney (any period from the 1940s to the 1990s).

Travels.

• The ones who were left behind.
• Travelling for the first time to my parents’/grandparents’ homeland.
• Ancestors from different parts of the world.
• Achievements and success of individuals/family members.

Memories.

• Herbs/medicine and spices.
• Soul Food/Recipes from back in the day.
• We Are Family (three generations that are still connected).
• What my Mama used to say (folk stories/tales from the past).

The course is free of charge and the workshops will take place in Hackney Museum, Hackney Archives and other community venues in the borough. Due to nature of the workshops and activities we can only have a limited number of participants.

Course orientation: Thursday 26 November 2009, 6 pm at Hackney Museum, Reading Lane, E8 1GQ.

The sessions will be facilitated by Every Generation.

To register for the course please contact Cheryl Bowen on 020 8356 3500, or email cheryl.bowen@hackney.gov.uk .

What’s Your Story?

If you could speak to Hackney residents of 1909, what would you like to know about their lives? What was really ordinary to them but is now completely strange to us? We can’t have that conversation but we now have the technology so you will be able speak to the residents of Hackney in 2109. So what will they want to know? How did you come to be in London? What was life like in the country of your birth? What’s your family history? Do you have memories from the ’30s or the War? What memories, or thoughts would like to share with future generations? Do you remember the way Hackney used to be?

Would you like to record a message for posterity on this or other subjects? Or would you like to learn basic video camera, interviewing, editing skills and uploading skills from professionals? ’What’s Your Story?’ will also include an intergenerational element, so you can choose to interview or be interviewed by young people from the area.

If you are interested to learn more about What’s Your Story? and offer suggestions on how it should operate, come and meet Deborah Kingsland from DFG next Monday afternoon, 6 July 2009, 2.30 pm at the Lawns.

What is DFG?

Based in Dalston Kingsland, the Documentary Filmmakers Group is the leading provider of training for the TV industry.

DFG also runs special projects e.g. Last month, we completed ISIS, a training and production programme for women to make human rights films — http://thedfg.org/courses/page/271/isis.

A video art project for Gillett Square.

Agewell Computer Club members will have an opportunity to get involved with this wonderful project from Hackney Co-operative Developments. We will have an introductory session on Monday 8 June 2009 (starting soon after 2 pm), followed by a longer workshop on Monday 15 June 2009.

Below is a brief project summary (obviously participants will not be expected to have any previous experience of filming, and your computer skills will not have to be any better than they are now!) …

What is Mezzo Moderno, Mezzo Distrutto?

The title for this project in Italian translates as ‘Half Modern, Half Destroyed’ and it comes from a conversation artist Larisa Blazic overheard when someone was trying to explain what Dalston looked like to a friend. Larisa is proposing to make a new artwork about Dalston’s architecture for Gillett Square in November and she wants to get local people involved in making it. The idea for the project is to ask you to film your ‘views’ of Dalston’s architecture as short films on your mobile phone or a camera. This could be views from one of the windows in your home, or from the old and new buildings you encounter while walking around this local area. Larisa Blazic will then use this material to make both a website and a big video projection ‘collage’ of images on Gillett Square in November.

This is a picture of another project Larisa did in Homerton:

For the first session on 8 June we would like to come along and introduce the project to you and answer any questions you might have about what is involved. On 15 June for the second session, we would look more at how films are uploaded and used for the artwork.

Larisa is working with me, Emma Jones, from Hackney Co-operative Developments. I have organised the events that have happened on Gillett Square before. It would be fantastic if you are interested in taking part!

Our website: http://gillettsquare.org.uk .

I am writing to invite you to a special meeting of the Older People’s Reference Group to consult older people on the Hackney Central and Dalston Town Centre Draft Masterplans. The Masterplans are documents which set out ideas and proposals for the two town centres.

Many of you will have seen big changes in Hackney in your lifetimes. Now you can have your say on the future shape of Hackney Central and Dalston town centres, which the Council has identified as areas for regeneration.

What is the event?

Council officers will give two 15 minute presentations, each followed by time for questions and answers. The first will be on the Hackney Central Masterplan (followed by your questions) and the second will be on the Dalston Masterplan (also followed by your questions).

Following the question and answer session we are also intending to hold optional group discussions for those interested, looking at particular themes in the masterplans that most interest you.

Where is the event?

The Hackney Empire Hospitality Room, 291 Mare Street, London E8 1EJ. Access is from a side door on the Town Hall side of the Empire. Transport can be arranged for people with mobility difficulties.

When and for how long?

• Monday 6 April 2009.
• Presentation followed by questions and answers: 10.30 -11.30 am.
• Optional discussion group: 11.30 am – 12.30 pm.

Refreshments will be provided.

If you would like to participate in the optional discussion group or have mobility difficulties and require transportation please contact me on 0207 241 5906.

We need your expert opinion because we want to improve the information we provide for older people on the council’s web site. The web address of the council website is http://www.hackney.gov.uk/.

It would really help us if you could search for the following services and let us know about any problems you have finding the information …

1. Meals on Wheels – how to apply for the service.
2. How to go about accessing care services for adults and older people.
3. Information on whether you would be entitled to care services.
4. Information on Direct Payments – is the information understandable and does it clearly explain what Direct Payments are and how you apply for them?
5. How to get help at home (home care).
6. Services for carers.
7. How to report abuse if you suspect a vulnerable person is being abused (any type of abuse including financial or physical abuse).
8. Applying for a Blue Badge (to be able to park in disabled parking bays).
9. How do you apply to have a ramp and grab rails installed on your front steps?
10. Events for older people in Hackney.
11. Leisure passes for over-55s.

For each search please answer the following:

• How easy was it to find the information? If it was hard, say why.
• How long did it take?
• Was the information in Plain English and did tell you what you needed to know?
• Do you now know how to access the service?
• Was there any jargon that made the information hard to understand?
• If so please list the words or sentences that made it difficult to understand?
• Please tell us about any other problems that make the site hard to use (text size, layout, colours or anything else).

Please email your responses directly to Amanda.Elliot@hackney.gov.uk or call her 020 8356 3980 as soon as you can.

‘Your Hackney’ — an art and design research project based at London College of Communication, University of the Arts, is looking for participants. Hackney gets a lot of press and this can affect how people think and feel about the area. This project is designed to find out about Hackney from people who live there, and find ways of showing other people what life is really like there. Would you like to take part?

Taking part is designed to be simple and fun. You would receive a pack containing a disposable camera, a series of postcards with questions on, a journey and activity log, a memory/story sheet and a recipe sheet. Each item asks a simple question, for example, ‘What is the best thing about Your Hackney?’. In the case of the camera, particular photographs are asked for, such as ‘What is your favourite view in Your Hackney?’ The journey log requires you to fill in a weeks worth of journeys within Hackney and the recipe sheet asks for your favourite recipe. The memory sheets asks you to write down a memory from your time in Hackney and I am particularly interested in working with older residents within the Borough and hearing stories and experiences of their lives over the years. All materials are provided, and it won’t cost you anything to take part. The pack is designed to be fun to use and the questions asked have no wrong answers – what is important are your thoughts and opinions. When items are completed they need to be sent back to London College of Communication – envelopes and stamps will provided for this.

After the materials have been sent back you will be contacted with a view to an interview that will enable you to talk in more detail about their photographs and answers. If at this stage you do not wish to be interviewed that is fine, you can withdraw at any time. The research will be undertaken over the coming year, so if you don’t feel able to take part this month, don’t worry there is plenty of time.

The materials you generate – stories, photographs, etc – will be used to create art and design projects that show the rich variety of Hackney life. This work should be exhibited late 2010. All participants will receive an invitation to the exhibition. The materials may also be used in a written thesis and for further projects at a later date.

If you are interested in taking part then please email me at yourhackney@hotmail.com or call me on 07944 544 365 and we can discuss further. Then I will meet with you personally (somewhere that is convenient for you) to hand over the task pack and answer any further questions you may have. The project conforms to the University of the Arts ethical guidelines, so I will ask you to sign a participant consent form. Basic personal details will be required, but these details will be anonymised, and only researchers working on the project will have access to the original data.

Many thanks for your time.
Alison Barnes,
School of Graphic Design, LCC,
University of the Arts, London.

Hackney is diverse in many respects. There are people of different ages, some who have lived here for 20 years or more, and others who have just moved in. There are people of different social classes and from many different countries.

Our study aims to find out how people feel about this neighbourhood, what the good and bad things are and whether they feel comfortable living here. What do people have in common and share, and how do people make new friends in this neighbourhood? We would also like to find out if there are any problems for people living here, and what these problems might be. Are there any conflicts between people?

Similar research is being undertaken in European cities such as Berlin and Amsterdam. The researchers are Susanne Wessendorf and Katharina Schmid. Susanne lives in Dalston.

We hope to write a book about the area and pass on good ideas to local services and organisations.