Greetings, and welcome to another weekly playlist from St Harmonica's Blues Club. Last time we did an Ask the Audience playlist we received so many requests and recommendations we couldn't fit them all into one list. So here comes Part 2. Many, many thanks to all the contributors..
Enfield Council's Annual Meeting - the first ever to be held online - saw a council-wide welcome for the appointment of Cllr Sabri Ozaydin as Mayor of Enfield. However, when debate turned to changes to committee structures and scrutiny arrangements there was dissent - not just from Conservatives and the new Community First group, but also from within the controlling Labour Party ranks. There was also disagreement over an increase in the number of councillors who will receive special responsibility allowances.
Age UK Enfield have launched a Veteran Support Project, a new service which supports anyone who has served in the Armed Forces or National Service and their families.
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.
