Christmas Part Three

And so a final post for Christmas '07. This week has been parties and more parties, for old and young. Firstly, the Smarties Christmas party, then the Paintbox Christmas party and finally the Ocean Older Residents Forum Christmas and Eid bash. A smattering of photos here...

It seems that Christmas is alive and well in Stepney! Everyone seems up for a party and a celebration. However, it must be said, that scrape a little below the surface and we discover Christmas is pretty hard for lots of people for more reasons that can be written here. And so to sign off it's apt that the final word should go to the main man and the reason for all this celebration: 'In this world you will have trouble, but take heart! I have overcome the world.' (Jesus)

Christmas Part Two

Christmas Mubarak! We pray for a peaceful and happy Eid-ul-Adha to all our Muslim friends and neighbours as they celebrate today. It seems that in recent years, Christmas and one of the Eid celebrations have fallen around similar dates and our hope is that our mutual festivities will bring further understanding and respect to all members of our beloved Stepney community.

On Saturday, we held the fifth annual 'Christmas on the Farm' event. And what fun we had, too! Again, the cattle shed was packed out as we all sang 'Away in a Manger' and wished one another a Merry Christmas. Thanks to all the adults who took part, especially the three wise women(!) and to the children from the Smarties club who sang beautifully. Please click here to see all the photos of another good event...

Christmas Part One

So this is Christmas and what have we done? Well, we've had our first party - on Wednesday evening. It was good fun as around 30 of us, mainly from the Ocean Estate, gathered for some Christmas snacks, a short quiz and an impromptu nativity play (photos here). It was a good warm-up for the big event on Stepping Stones Farm this weekend...

We also enjoyed a bit of fundraising at one of our local pubs (photo above) - the Bancroft Arms. A small group of musicians blasted out some carols accompanied by some pretty raucous singing that grew louder with every pint consumed. Oh I wish it could be Christmas every day.

Calling all Londoners!

Londoners will know that next May, we will be going to the polls to elect the Mayor of London. But what do we want the Mayor of London to do for our city and its people? As a member organisation of London Citizens we are keen to join their grassroots campaign to find out.

On 9th April 2008, the proposals for London arising from this Listening Campaign will be presented to the Mayoral candidates at a huge pre-election assembly. And so we would like to hear from you about your priorities for London. First watch the video... then take some action - fill in the poll to the right or download our questionaire and email it us or simply leave a comment on this post. We'll collate your suggestions and add it to the campaign.

Thanks Jason

For the past year, Jason, has been a full-time volunteer for us. Tomorrow is his last official day as a volunteer (although he's sticking around as one of our members). It has been brilliant to have him with us and the time seems to have just flown by! In that time, he's helped with our toddlers messy play group, Paintbox, and our children's club Smarties; he's helped people move house; he's served lunches for older people and students; he's played football with young people and badminton with Stepney fathers; he's dug gardens, swept leaves and washed up; he's helped to lead our times of our prayer and to understand the Bible from a Chinese worldview; most of all he's demonstrated the life of someone who takes Jesus seriously and tries to live out his teachings in the community. We want to say thank you to him because he's enriched Stepney community life and we've been proud to have him link with us. Thanks mate!

A Bumper Good Neighbours!

We met this morning for our monthly Good Neighbours getogether. And all told there were 31 of us, which has to be a record! Despite the cold weather, despite the fact it was 10:30am on a Sunday morning, despite the fact it was giving up time to do gardening and painting for other people. It's times like this when Jesus' words about loving your neighbour and putting others first become real. And somehow sharing lunch aftewards somehow feels so much more rewarding when we've done something to earn it!

Bangladesh cyclone

We were all really concerned this week to hear about the recent cyclone that has hit southern Bangladesh. The Salvation Army in that great country is responding to the community needs with relief. To see footage and photos of what is happening follow this link and please give generously.

Baby Shower

Probably this week's highlight in the hope:asha community has to be Laila's baby shower. As well as having lots of fun (and snacks) it was really good to hear the different ways cultures and faiths approach having children. Jojo gave us the Chinese perspective, Jitka the Czech, Laila the Bangladeshi and Muslim and Emma, Ruth and I tried to cover the British and Christian! It was a lovely evening of being together and we pray that all goes well for Laila as she has her first baby.

Faith in Community

Today we held our third 'Faith in Community' event with Stepney Father's Group. There were probably around 50 of us there, which was slightly below our previous attendance but good nonetheless. There was a brilliant mix of people - including those from English, Bangladeshi, Chinese, American, German and Indian backgrounds. We had three really good speakers -Habib Rahman from Islamic Forum Europe, Linbert Spencer from The Salvation Army and John Biggs the London Assembly member for East London. See photos here...

The aim of these events is to bring people together from different faith and cultural backgrounds around the Ocean Estate and we achieved this. There was some good discussion as well as food! However, we're well aware that events are not enough, relationships of trust between neighbours only really build community. Let's see where we go next...

TELCO

This week we became proud members of The East London Communities Organisation (TELCO). This is a fantastic alliance of active citizens and community leaders organising for change. Some of the campaigns are seriously effective - please check them out here and join the campaigns if you can...

We joined at the annual TELCO assembly in Clapton on Wednesday evening. It was good to feel some momentum for change in London and various high profile figures were there.

Badminton Tournament

This is the first posting on our newly established blog. It's been a fun day and so a good moment to begin.

We organised a badminton tournament, along with Stepney Father's Group as part of a weekend called 'Faith in Community'. Our aim was to bring people together from varied cultural and religious backgrounds. All in all, people seemed to enjoy themselves and there were around 40 people who turned up and there was definitely a good mix of people.

Badminton it appears is the only thing I've come across in Tower Hamlets that will get people to turn up because they've seen a flyer. Our usual experience is that you usually have to drag people kicking and screaming to any kind of 'event'. But today people came - 1 from the other side of London! Check out some photos here...