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Brixton chitter chatter and news and updates (Feb-Aug 2011)

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JESUS! That lightning was so close. A lump of rendering has fallen off Clifton Mansions and is lying on the pavement in Coldharbour Lane. Can't tell whether it was the lightning or the noise.
 
nick h. said:
JESUS! That lightning was so close. A lump of rendering has fallen off Clifton Mansions and is lying on the pavement in Coldharbour Lane. Can't tell whether it was the lightning or the noise.
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Or Lambeth has got some serious weaponry in to evict the squatters.
 
The top floor of H & M is to become a christian run community help centre apparently - the bookshop opposite the police station is moving in there. (I only know as 100+ people suddenly appeared seemingly from nowhere on Electric Lane this evening so I asked what gowon)
 
uk benzo said:
Facebook suggested this group to me:

Handpicked Brixton

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Handpicked-Brixton/170961002957757

Some of the stuff is interesting, but the group founder/s appear/s to have completely focussed their attention on the new hipster establishments ignoring the more established core.
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They're doing something right as they have over 3000 likes. I think it's pretty well balanced but then i might be biased as they picked two of my events in the past month.
 
I 'like' them on fb, but only so I can see what they post, not because I 'like' what they post. Everything to it has the faint air of Chinese fake raybans and rolled up chinos.
 
snowy_again said:
Complicated story about Angell Town Community Project, being removed from the Charity Commission register:

http://www.thirdsector.co.uk/News/D...458EAAD3DADE1DB881/?DCMP=EMC-CONDailyBulletin
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I saw that and was musing about it yesterday. Doesn't look like corruption, more like lack of business skills. I think (I may be wrong) that ATCP were ok when it came to dealing with housing issues but running a commercial enterprise seems to have defeated them. Which is a shame.

The story led me to consider how much more of this sort of thing will we see in this 'Big Society' future and if it will cost us more in the long run.
 
I went the paddling pool again on Monday - large paddling pool working at approx half the pressure. On the lazy river - one pump was working at a dribble.

Cycled past yesterday in the aftermath of the thunder storm to see that everything appeared to be in full working order - TONS of water - but obviously no families.
 
gaijingirl said:
I went the paddling pool again on Monday - large paddling pool working at approx half the pressure. On the lazy river - one pump was working at a dribble.

Cycled past yesterday in the aftermath of the thunder storm to see that everything appeared to be in full working order - TONS of water - but obviously no families.
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Was working OK this lunchtime. Thing 2 and I lowered the tone by turning up with pizza from Oregano.
 
miss minnie said:
I saw that and was musing about it yesterday. Doesn't look like corruption, more like lack of business skills. I think (I may be wrong) that ATCP were ok when it came to dealing with housing issues but running a commercial enterprise seems to have defeated them. Which is a shame.
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There are two charities on Angell Town. The Estate Management Board which deals with housing, and the Community Project which dealt with, well I suppose community projects. The EMB are currently extant and running OKish. ATCP was wound up as stated in the report. It's been an open secret on the estate for some years that ATCP grants were going into personal pockets. The investigation from Lambeth only really got going last summer, and effectively ATCP stopped operating before Christmas last year.

It's not a shame. The shame is that it's taken so long for it to happen. When the estate was refurbished in the late 90s it was always intended that there be a two pronged approach with one tenants organisation running the buildings and the care of the open spaces and so on from the rents, and the other using income from the commercial units to fund community projects. Unfortunately what happened is that after fifteen years of struggle to get the estate sorted out a lot of active residents were effectively burnt out. So there have been problems in both organisations of tenants representation turning into an undemocratic clique. The EMB has taken serious action to try to sort that out. ATCP never did.

We are currently attempting to set up a new community project with a proper democratic set up. However there's absolutely no money to do this with. Lambeth are giving some help with admin but we desperately need STUFF. So if anyone is upgrading their computer over the next few months... WE WANT IT.

If anyone lives on the Angell Town Estate then PM me and I'll sort out informing you of the next couple of meetings of the group trying to set up the new community project.

miss minnie said:
The story led me to consider how much more of this sort of thing will we see in this 'Big Society' future and if it will cost us more in the long run.
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The real problem here has been the way that "bureaucratic red tape" has been reduced. It means that ATCP got away with not producing proper audited accounts several years in a row. Sometimes there's a damn good reason for all the seemingly petty paperwork.

So damn right, a combination of "small government" and "Big Society" is basically going to be a boom time for would be embezzlers.
 
Thanks for the info, had no idea.

Unfortunately what happened is that after fifteen years of struggle to get the estate sorted out a lot of active residents were effectively burnt out.
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I recognise that syndrome alright, it's something the Tories don't mention when they spin the Big Society mularky.

Hmm, computers, send me a PM with what your minimum spec and I'll look around.
 
miss minnie said:
Hmm, computers, send me a PM with what your minimum spec and I'll look around.
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There is no minimum spec. We have nothing. We have a space we can use, and if we have a computer capable of Internet access we can almost certainly use a Lambeth account at least for a while. It would be handy to be able to do basic word processing and send emails from an office computer as a few of the active people don't have a computer at home (yet).

Eventually it would be nice to have several basic "entry level" PCs so that we can run computer literacy lessons, but that's in the future. Right now we are starting pretty much from scratch.
 
eric - I've got a couple of boxes and screens looking for a home. I bought them out of an internet cafe with a particular plan in mind, but that didn't come to fruition. I'll need 2-3 days to get them from storage and check they work okay - assuming they are ok, they're yours if you want them?
 
ericjarvis said:
The real problem here has been the way that "bureaucratic red tape" has been reduced. It means that ATCP got away with not producing proper audited accounts several years in a row. Sometimes there's a damn good reason for all the seemingly petty paperwork.

So damn right, a combination of "small government" and "Big Society" is basically going to be a boom time for would be embezzlers.
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But their regulator was the charity commission, which hasn't and won't change, despite the BS bollocks. What's a shame is that angell town community project were allowed to only submit one set of accounts in five years, and were presumably in that time supported by Lambeth LA?

http://www.charity-commission.gov.u...steredCharityNumber=296018&SubsidiaryNumber=0

As for start up costs for a new, replacement org, surely something simple like Awards for All will pay for governance, systems, start up etc.?
 
snowy_again said:
As for start up costs for a new, replacement org, surely something simple like Awards for All will pay for governance, systems, start up etc.?
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Good advice. I'll look into that. However we need to get underway with having a general meeting open to everyone on the estate and sorting out electing a genuinely democratic group to get things up to a proper AGM. I'd rather we had some sort of democratic legitimacy BEFORE getting any funding in.
 
Then run it through an umbrella / development organisation so they can host / 'incubate' the development? Do LVSC still do that, I can't remember?
 
Brace yourselves for a gentrification bomb: 20 new mini-Waitroses could be announced today. From www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a3b98488-a405-11e0-8b4f-00144feabdc0.html

Waitrose, the supermarket beloved of middle class Britons, is poised to ramp up its convenience store business. [It] will announce on Saturday that it is opening 20 “Little Waitrose” convenience stores in and around London over the next 18 months...Eventually, it could have 300-400 convenience stores across the UK. “We are formally going to put the foot on the gas,” said Mark Price, managing director of Waitrose..."We want as many sites as we can get all over the country."
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