June 2009 Issue 82

With New Deal funding gone and Green City Action stepping down as event organisers, Burngreave residents are taking back their community festivals and running the events with volunteers.

Entertainment, music, dance and more at Fir Vale fun day on 19th July 2009.

Local performances, stalls, food, children’s activities, sports, dance, music and much more!

In May 2009, Sheffield City Council discussed proposals for the expansion of Fir Vale School with students, parents and local residents.

From April 2009 SADACCA will be running new activities for young people aged 8 to 13, with funding from the Kids Can Do programme.

Thursday 11th June 2009 will see the launch of a Young Persons’ Health Drop-In Service to be held at Earl Marshal Connexions Centre, the first in the Burngreave area. The service will focus on all aspects of health but will have a particular emphasis on advice around relationships and sexual health.

Local residents have been disturbed to find that the BNP have been using Royal Mail’s services to deliver their leaflets for the EU elections around Burngreave.

Following the article in our last issue about Carwood estate's kitchens, we are pleased to announce that the kitchens are now to be completely repaired and fitted with quality doors and drawers.

Burngreave residents have a unique invitation to the Town Hall on June 11th 2009 to tell councillors of the positives and negatives of Burngreave New Deal and the effect on the community.

On 23rd April, an advice session to promote the Sheffield Responsible Landlord Scheme was run by the Pakistan Advice and Community Association in Fir Vale, in partnership with the Council’s Private Sector Housing Team.

The Jamaican High Commissioner addressed the Sheffield’s black community on Thursday 30th April.

New Deal revealed plans in April to sell off Forum House and the New Deal Truck, as the full scale of their financial problems became clear

From 28th May, a Dispersal and Curfew Order in Fir Vale, Page Hall and the Wensley Estate will allow police to move on groups of more than two people and enforce a curfew of 9pm

Youth Entertainment Club has been forced to leave the Vestry Hall. The club, which provided video games, table tennis and pool for boys aged 12-20 seven days a week, was closed by New Deal on 19th May.

2009 has been a difficult year for many of the community projects in Burngreave. The funding cuts from Burngreave New Deal for Communities left some groups struggling to survive. In addition, the introduction of Community Assemblies will mean the area no longer has an Area Panel working directly for its benefit.

Health is a big issue for Burngreave. Our area has much higher rates of asthma, chronic heart disease, diabetes and respiratory illness than other parts of Sheffield.

Free Discussion & Consultations in Burngreave

Students from a Level 1 ESOL class in the Vestry Hall conducted an interview with Saeed Abdi from the Somali Mental Health Project (MAAN), Sindy Chana, the new Ambassador Lead for Mental Health for Yorkshire and Humberside and Amina Mohamed, who has just been appointed Ambassador for Sheffield.

Walk and prayers organised by religious institutions, from Burngreave to Firth Park

• Community Cohesion

• Presentation of training awards

• Different Pasts, Shared Futures

When they arrived in 2005, Alpha Mbodi and his two sons, Aime and Junior, believed they had escaped the horrors of the civil war that was devastating the North Kivu of Dr Congo

On Tuesday 4th May a group of twelve adult learners from the WEA Politics & Public Life course at Fir Vale School visited Parliament to find out more about how the parliamentary process works and to see for themselves what happens there. We were joined by other groups across the region involved in a WEA project to encourage citizens to ‘Take Part’.

Story: Sophie Mei Photos: Schani Cave

On Friday 22nd May, BBC Radio 4 broadcast their long-standing topical politics show ‘Any Questions?’ from Longley Park Sixth Form College.

Ellesmere Children’s Centre staged a ‘Wear Bright for Sight’ day and raised £50 in the process for Henshaws, the leading charity for visually impaired people in the North of England.

Mums and babies from around the area got together on Wednesday 13th May to mark National Breastfeeding Awareness Week, which ran from 10th – 17th May.

On 31st March Byron Wood’s Y3, Y4 & Y5 astounded parents, pupils and guests with an amazing performance of Oliver.

The theatre at Fir Vale School was full for a special celebration of university achievement organised by the Yemeni Community Association (YCA). Numbers going to university from the Yemeni community have increased dramatically over recent years and several dozen individuals received awards to recognize their achievements.

Last year the Fir Vale family of schools took over 100 people to Clumber Park for a cycling family day out. Many of the mums there couldn’t cycle and we wanted to change that.

Local artist Michael Gaskell has reached the final three in the BP Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery in London.

Story: Raveena Hussain (Fir Vale School Student Voice) We are a group of students at Fir Vale School – Raveena Hussain, Amoon Fazeldin, Raquia Begum, all year 10 students and Zena M’shana, from year 11.

London based, Palestinian singer Reem Kelani, (accompanied by Bruno Heinen on Piano) gave a stunning performance of a number of songs from Arabic speaking countries.

The Vestry Hall came alive again this month with the latest incarnation of the Burngreave Cultural Industries Challenge.

Despite seeing success on the field of play in 2009, local Pitsmoor and Burngreave based football club, Earl Marshall Juniors, had to come to terms with the unexpected and tragic death of Club Secretary Mark Moran Healy

Young people aged 14-16 ran for fun in the EIS (English Institute of Sport) on the 9th of May.

Local residents will be getting the opportunity to have their say about how services are delivered and what they want in their area:

• First meetings and community plan

• Community Chest

• Councillor surgery dates

I joined around 30 locals in The Normanton pub on Earldom Road for their reunion. When I arrived the bar was decked with balloons and nibbles. I asked organaiser John “Fozzi” Foster what it was all about.

Local music production company have made waves after entering their material into a local competition

On 6th June 1944 the Allied Forces of World War II began their invasion of the Normandy beaches, the ‘D Day’ Landings. The largest military operation in history saw hundreds of thousands of troops being ferried across the English Channel frok Southern Angland to Northern France in a well planned and highly organised operation. Among them was Burngreave resident Ken Riley, one of only a handful of Veterans of the Normandy Landings still living in Sheffield.

The stone facing of the landmark Wicker arches has recently had a clean-up, thanks to Network Raid and Sheffield City Council. The operation follows on from recent decorative lighting in the pedestrian arches and illumination above the main span. The work was to enhance the visual impact of the arches on the main route between Burngreave and the city centre.

Finding a peaceful spot in a busy city can be a challenge but residents in the Abbeyfield Road area have their own little piece of heaven.

SHEBEEN – the Sheffield Black & Ethnic Minority Environmental Network – organised a woil and earthworms survey in Abbeyfield Park on 19th May for students of the Community Foundation Studies course at Sheffield College's Fir Vale Centre, as part of the Open Air Laboratories (OPAL) new initiative. The aim is to get people back in touch with nature by exploring and studying their local environments.

Since the beginning of March this year, there has been a lot of writing and reflecting on the 1984 Miners’ Strike, marking the 25th anniversary. One Burngreave resident, Lesley Boulton, was actively involved in supporting the miners’ cause and has strong memories from this time. I went to meet her at her home in Pitsmoor and to hear her own account of the Battle of Orgreave.

Built in the 1840s, and originally called Pitsmoor Abbey, Abbeyfield was five and a half acres of land which first belonged to William Pass, the owner of a local colliery.

Discover the history of Burngreave. Learn how to research your own local history project and work towards an exhibition or article in the Messenger. Begins Friday 12th June – 7th August.

BNDfC has formally approached our funders, the Department for Communities and Local Government, to see if it would be possible to have the clawback restrictions currently in place on Forum House, lifted. This would mean that technically we could then sell the building without having to repay the NDC grant used to buy it in the first place.

The Community Forestry team had a fantastic year in Burngreave. We ran 35 events including tree-planting, bulbplanting, guided walks, forest schools tasters and some environmental improvements.