While we admire and support the Christmas campaigns that we see pop up in December, we also know that help is urgently needed all year round, each and every year. As some people pack away after the festive break, we are still here.
Our support is not limited to a food package, but it leaps beyond - we form connections, we listen and respond to everyone who steps through our doors. We open up a warm, safe, environment which aims to feel like a home away from home.
For us to continue to thrive and grow, and keep supporting as many people as possible, we are asking you to become a Friend of Cooking Champions. Even a donation of just £5-10 per month can make a HUGE impact on the lives of those who come through our doors.
Pop to our People's Fundraising page to donate, and we promise to keep you updated with how your support is making a difference. Thank you, we appreciate you! Team Cooking Champions
News, comment and features
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Citizens Advice Enfield's two rather smart charity shops in Palmers Green are back - both in Green Lanes, one on the corner of Park Avenue, the other just south of the North Circ. However, for CAB Enfield's volunteer advisors the lockdown has not meant a break in their work - if anything, the reverse. In the first month they helped 675 clients, moving from face-to-face to assistance over the phone. Nationally, Citizens Advice has helped 380,000 clients with their problems over the past three months.
The Dugdale Centre has awoken from its long enforced period of inactivity. The new opening hours are 11am to 3pm Monday to Friday. So far the Café, Gift Shop and Gallery have reopened, and on 14th July they will be followed by the Museum and Local Studies Centre. The gallery plays host to a new exhibition by Palmers Green artist Patrick Samuel celebrating what he enjoyed about lockdown and his eagerness to to paint during the period of isolation
Forty Hall reopens this weekend and will open every Saturday and Sunday. Tours are free be must be booked in advanced. The gift shop and cafe will also be open.
At the start of August Enterprise Enfield will be moving from the Enfield Business Centre in Enfield Wash and setting up a new North London Business Hub on the Southgate College campus. Facilities will include a large co-working area with super-fast broadband, meeting rooms and event space - which, when the pandemic restrictions are eased, will be open to businesses for hot-desking, networking events and workshops
At last week's board meeting of the North London Waste Authority, the concerns of a remarkably broad coalition of opponents of the plan for a huge new incinerator were brushed aside by the authority's chair. But challenges to the project have not gone away, the latest being an open letter which, using unvarnished language, calls out the authority on one of the most basic items of data being used to justify the project.
News from Alison Gordon at Age UK Enfield: We've developed a wide range of free online activities via zoom to support Health & Wellbeing. Our aim is offer online activities until we can safely meet together in public in small groups, but also to reach new people who may not be confident to return to groups as they slowly redevelop and want to remain indoors.
An investigation by two local journalists has revealed that, despite a pledge by health secretary Matt Hancock, care homes in Enfield were refused Covid-19 tests for symptomatic residents at the peak of the pandemic.
Enfield Council has published information about its progress in obtaining funding for urgent Streetspace schemes, designed to enable more walking and cycling post-lockdown in a situation where people will be unable or reluctant to use public transport. A document recently published on the council's Let's Talk website also includes updates about the status of planned low-traffic neighbourhoods in the Fox Lane, Connaught Gardens and Bowes Primary areas.
This week's St Harmonica's playlist was compiled and annotatedby 'Little Paul' Besterman. From the honking and wailing of Gatortail Jackson through the downhome of Dr.Ross Sonny Boy Son House Willie Mctell stopping off in Chicago for Muddy Junior Wells, to the Screaming of Jay Hawkins, a trip of various styles possibly driven by Memphis Minnie's chauffeur. Listen, bop, or weep - it's all Blues.
A postgraduate student at UCL is carrying out a survey of people's feelings towards using public transport during the coronavirus pandemic and afterwards