Glasshouse Walk Playground Consultation in Vauxhall - Saturday 30th July

On Saturday (30th July) from 12 noon to 2pm, there will be a consultation organised by VGERTA (Vauxhall Gardens Estate Residents and Tenants Association) held at the Carmelita Centre (corner of Vauxhall Walk and Jonathan Street) on the future of the Glasshouse Walk Playground.

Visitors will be presented with three options for the future of the playground after two sets of community consultation.  They're also offering cake...The playground campaign has been the result of months of hard work on the part of VGERTA, and I'd urge local residents to attend and look at the options for the future of the playground.

In addition, VGERTA have  produced a video that you can watch showing the playground in its somewhat dilapidated state and in case you're not sure of the exact location.  I'm hoping this is the "before" representation and that the residents will  soon be able to produce an "after" offering  too:

Royal Wedding Street Party at Tea House Theatre in Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens

The yet-to-open Tea House Theatre will be holding an all-day (9am - 6pm) Royal Wedding Street Party on Vauxhall Walk on Friday 29th April.  There'll be tea, cake, jelly, icecream, cricket, special guests, animals from Vauxhall City Farm, bingo and free entry to the after party at the Black Dog pub.  What more could anybody possibly want?  Oh, and local residents are invited to bring a cake for the cake-judging competition.  (The day is held in association with VGERTA, The Friends of Spring Gardens, The Vauxhall Society, Black Dog pub, Vauxhall City Farm, PJ Frankland (our local butcher) and Blueberry Hill Cakes.)

The Tea House Theatre is situated on the corner of Laud Street and Vauxhall Walk and can be accessed from Kennington Lane by strolling across Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens (formerly Spring Gardens).  The theatre is based on the site of the old Queen Anne pub.

See poster below for the same info in a more attractive format:

I also understand that there's a Royal Wedding Street Party taking place in Cleaver Square, but it's only open to those who hold tickets, and tickets were only distributed to neighbouring residents associations, so if you're looking for something open to the public, it would be better to head to Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens!

Celebratory Feast at Oval Famers Market and Royal Scarecrows, Peter Tatchell on Environmental Campaigning, Vauxhall Easter Egg Hunt and more...

A few diary dates... I'm trying to keep up and add them to my Lurking about S11 calendar, but I'm not brilliant so will summarise them here.  As ever, there's a lot going on...

Vauxhall Gardens Estate Residents and Tenants Association AGM
Thursday 31st March, 6:30pm - 9pm at the Carmelita Centre (corner of Jonathan St and Vauxhall Walk)

Celebratory Feast at Oval Farmer's Market
Saturday 2nd April, 10am - 3pm at Oval Farmer's Market (grounds of St Mark's church in Oval)

Unveiling of royal scarecrows at Cottington Community Gardens
Saturday 2nd April, 12 noon at Opal Street, Kennington Lane, SE11 4HZ

Peter Tatchell to be interviewed on human rights work and environmental campaigning
Tuesday 5th April, 7:45pm at Oval House Theatre

KOV Forum
Thursday 7th April, 7pm - 9pm at St Anne's Resettlement Hall, 40-46 Harleyford Road.  (Entrance in Vauxhall Grove, SW8 1TD)

East Egg Hunt in Vauxhall Park (for children aged between 1 and 10)
Saturday 9th April, 10:30am (registration) for 11am start.  The event is for children aged between 1 and 10 only.

Kennington Gardens Society Spring Show
Saturday 16th April, 9am - 3pm at St Anselm's Hall

Royal Wedding Street Party
(This one isn't certain yet, but it looks to be fun if they manage to pull it off...)
Friday 29th April (time TBA) at Tea Hosue Theatre (formerly Queen Anne pub in Spring Gardens)

Need support for new playground for Vauxhall Gardens Estate Residents and Tenants Association

Vauxhall Gardens Estate Residents and Tenants Association (VGERTA) need support in their attempt to win a £15,000 bursary for new playground equipment. They're currently trying to upgrade and revive a playground that lies on the heart of the estate.

The bursary campaign, Ready for Ten, is being run by Patsy Kensit and VGERTA have nominated their own playground to receive the funds.  You may remember that they progressed quite a long way, but were ultimately unsuccessful with a similar campaign that Bovril ran last year.  I know how much time and energy it takes for residents to win small amounts of money to upkeep playgrounds and I really want to wave the flag for whoever it is at VGERTA that remains so persistent.

Please do consider supporting them by registering and leaving a comment on the Ready for Ten VGERTA playground page here and there's also a link to their playground video on that site.  I registered and you can see my comment on the site:

It's very easy to register and make a comment, and winning the bursary would be such a boost for local children on the VGERTA estate.  I've noted:

"The Vauxhall Gardens Estate playground would strongly benefit from receiving a bursary for their playground.. This playground is in quite a run down area of inner London in a location that contains a smaller amount of green space per head than allowed for by government recommendations. In the surrounding area, at least three staffed Adventure playgrounds are at threat of closure so ensuring that there is somewhere for local children to play that will remain open is vital for keeping fit and teaching play skills. The current playground is rather run down and residents have been exploring a whole variety of routes to improve it, but in an age of government cuts, this is looking less and less viable..."

Added China Walk TRA to the map and a few blog changes

At the suggestion of one reader, I've added China Walk Tenants and Residents Association (TRA) to the map at the top right corner, very near the boundary of SE11. Apparently, they have a community resource, the Chandler Community Hall (and very smart it looks to), which is available for hire. They charge between £15-£25 per hour, depending on what type of group you are. Here's a pic, and see their website for more details:

I'll also add VGERTA, but not sure where they're based in order to put the pin in the correct place. Can anybody advise whether VGERTA have a headquarters?  Does anybody else know of (or belong to) any other TRAs that they might want me to link to the blog or add to the map?

Eagle eyed blog watchers who are not reading through an RSS reader will notice that I've been making a few changes to the blog. It's my eventual aim to move from Blogspot to Wordpress, but I'm terrified of losing my Google positioning as it has taken ages to get to this stage, so in the meantime, I'm just making use of various blogspot features to add bits and pieces.  I've added user comments to the main page, as some of these are lengthy and worth reading for their own sakes.  I've written a Yahoo Pipes mashup that should gather details of everything currently for sale in Kennington, Oval, Vauxhall, SE11 and SW8 on Gumtree, which might be useful if you'd buy items that are available locally (it does seem to change very frequently though, since the Gumtree RSS feed only gives access to 100 items).  The link to that is under "Kennington and SE11 items for sale" at the top of the blog.  I've also swapped the embedded map with a picture of a clickable image which will take you through to the Google map, so that the main site doesn't take so long to load.

Bovril award money - vote for Vauxhall Playground facelift

VGERTA (The Vauxhall Gardens Estate Residents and Tenants Association) have reached the final round of Bovril's "Outdoor revival" to receive some money for a playground.

However, they need lots of votes to help them be chosen as a winning project. I would urge you to vote for them on Bovril's site here. It would be really good to see some money going to a local project (bearing in mind that sadly, neither Kennington nor Vauxhall park achieved enough votes to win Boris' makeover), and the VGERTA playground is slap bang in the heart of SE11. The Bovril site is a bit Flash-ridden, but if you can manage to get in to vote, please do.

Their spiel is as follows:

"We live on a deprived housing estate and we have a neglected playground for kids that is used constantly by families with young children. The play equipment has worn out over the years and there has been no refurbishment to the playground. It has been left to deteriorate but that it is still used. It could do with a face lift and some new safety flooring, some new picnic tables, swings, roundabouts climbing apparatus but it needs a make over. Vauxhall Gardens Estate Residents and Tenants Association (VGERTA) represents more than 2,000 people that live in the estate. The playground would be key to revive our local community and give kids a place to play and have fun safely."