Nottingham Green Festival

Held every year in September, the Nottingham Green Festival is a unique event, free to enter, and well worth a visit - check out their website at http://nottmgreenfest.org.uk/.

Here are a few images from previous recent years:

BFTF signed petitions and donated at Amnesty International

Lovely prints by Anne and Alice

THERE. WERE. CROWDS

Greenwood Community Forum - championing green spaces

BFTF cannot pass by Ex-Libris without buying a book or, in this  case, two.

 Mocky-D !

Cloth nappies. A technology from the past, helping secure a future, and here today

ScrapStores

And below are some images from the 2016 Festival...

Busy!

Dr Bike, from not-for-profit Nottingham Bikeworks, were present and offering free bike checks. BFTF took advantage of this and was told that the BFTF bike was in good nick apart from the chain, which was worn and needed replacing (and was what was causing BFTF's gears to slip occasionally).

Dr Bike

Incidentally, some very nice signs had been installed around the Arboretum, provding information on the history of the park.

Informative Signs at the Arboretum

Lots of food options with most (if not all) being vegan. BFTF bought some very nice vegan cakes but could easily have been persuaded to part with some cash at the following two food locations.

Nice looking doughnuts at Vegan Junk

The Veggie Catering Campaign

Nice stall from Nottingham Hackspace, who were demonstrating how rope can be made, amongst other things...

Hackspace

Nice things at Hackspace

A Lemonade Shisha thing at Hackspace

The three hooks are spinning at about 3prm

At the other end, gently tapping the rope to settle the twist

End result is rope like this!

The "Bee Cause" campaign, a Friends of the Earth project also being championed locally. The group comments that :

"The main reasons for decline of bees are: habitat loss, farming practices, pesticides, loss of flower-rich hay meadows, hedge removal (hedges attract small mammals whose burrows can be used by bumblebees), unsympathetic management of verges and green areas. Gardens are the best remaining habitat (if pesticide free)."

They have also engaged with the Nottingham City Council (in 2012), and received a positive response showing the many ways the council is making its parks and green spaces more bee friendy.

The chap on the stall explained to BFTF that it would be helpful to bees if gardens etc had flowers in them all year round (as far as possible) - and gave a list of suitable plants (see here)

Nottingham FOE were also campaigning on the issue of air quality, pointing out that Nottingham (and other areas) were still not meeting air quality standards that they should have reached in 2010, and that poor air quality kills thousands of people a year in the UK. The key measure required to reduce air pollution is to implement a "Clean Air Zone" by restricting or charging heavily polluting vehicles (e.g. trucks) from the city centre (for example).

Air pollution in Nottingham

Bee Cause 

Interesting stuff at the Frack Free Notts stall. Their literature claimed to bust a number of fracking myths, not least the one that the UK is dependent on Russian gas supplies (it isn't). An it was interesting to see how a typcial fracking field would look when superimposed on some English countryside.

In terms of the local situation, Frack Free Notts will be challenging IGAS Energy's planning application to explore for shale gas in the north of Nottinghamshire at Mission Springs in Bassetlaw. In particular they are asking people to turn up at County Hall at 9am on Wednesday 5th October to urge the planning committee to reject the planning application.

IGAS has a website for this project which includes notes from meetings of a community liason group.

Frack Free Notts

Mission Decision - Wed 5th Oct

What a Fracking site looks like

At AVID (Association of Visitors to Immigration Detainees), BFTF learnt how they provide support, training and information to volunteer befrienders, and to help visitors around the country learn from each other. And also about the Morton Hall Detainee Visitor Support Group

Morton Hall Detainee Visitor Group

The "Keep Our NHS Public" stall were unsure how to respond when asked about ensuring that Nottingham City CCG does not implement polices that discriminate against those who smoke or who are obese (except in cases of clinical need). Eventually they said BFTF should email Peter Homa, chief executive of the NUH. BFTF has done that via the NUH contact page

Keep Our NHS Public

Both Five Leaves and ExLibris booksellers were present, with the inevitable result that BFTF bought a book...

Seriously, it was rather busy!

BFTF also visited a number of other stalls, but this post is probably long enough already, so if you would like to get the full experience, make sure you visit the Nottingham Green Festival in 2017.

The weather was kind.

They walk among us!

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2015 Green Festival

BFTF had a great time at this years Nottingham Green Festival, an event that has a unique vibe and ambiance!

Thanks are indeed due to funders, such as the Veggies Catering Campaign, who were key to making the event happen. A few notes and pictures below....

It was a busy event

Great selection of food, and the BFTF crew were certainly impressed with the vege burgers from the Veggies van. It was interesting to see how many of the food vendors were clearly very passionate about the ingredients they were using, and keen to demonstrate their committment to vegan and vegetarian principles by showcasing the brands available. BFTF had no idea there were so many alternatives to cows milk, for example.

Very busy at the Veggies Catering Campaign van

Interesting stuff from the Veggies Catering Campaign

Nice drink by Whole Earth

Short list of ingredients, apple juice in second place, not sugar.

Delicious dessert from Food Heaven

As might be expected, many campaigning groups had stalls at the event and BFTF had some interesting conversations, although the marine conservation group who had never heard of the MSC label might want to do a bit more research for next time...

Cuban Solidarity Stall - who'd have thunk Notts had such a group?

BFTF finds it really hard to walk buy a second hand book shop, and inevitably ended up making some purchases at the winningly named "Masked booksellers" stall.

Loved the Masked Booksellers!

Lots of dynamic activities and displays too, including Capoeira.

Capoeira, like martial arts, but at 33rpm

Bands were popular...

Nottingham Award Winners!

Some of Nottingham's recent award winners...

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Many wonderful stories in the "Nottingham Post Heroes Awards 2016"

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Amanda Ogelsby - NCT Driver of the Year, 2015
"Amanda has been a driver for Nottingham City Transport for 2.5 years and qualified for the Driver of the Year competition after winning the Seasonal Driver Award earlier in the year. Along with her fellow finalists – Terry Bell, Nick Hill and Gary Slater – Amanda was assessed by mystery travellers over a number of journeys, and had demonstrated exceptional driving skills, route knowledge and a consistently high level of customer service."

In recognition of Amanda's skills, the Lord Mayor of Nottingham, Councillor Jackie Morris, has officially unveiled the ‘Amanda Ogelsby Bus’, naming bus 334 in honour of 27-year-old Amanda from Cotgrave.

Nottingham City Transport Marketing Manager, Anthony Carver-Smith commented that “Not only is [Amanda] an incredibly skillful driver with outstanding knowledge of many routes on our network, she’s also a very warm and friendly person who genuinely cares about the wellbeing of her passengers. She’s received several commendations from customers over the years, and she’s highly thought of by her managers and colleagues.”(link)

The Amanda Ogelsby Bus!

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2016 Nursing Times Award Winners
The University of Nottingham’s School of Health Sciences has won its biggest ever number of awards at the 2016 Nursing Times Student Nurse Awards. As well as The School itself winning "Nurse Education Provider of the Year (Post-registration)", three of its students won in individual categories. Now in its 5th year, the 2016 event saw a record number of entries, with 163 finalists shortlisted and 17 winners.(link)

MSc Advanced Nursing student Aquiline Chivinge won the Learner of the Year: Post-registration.
Final year BSc Nursing student Craig Bell won the Student Nurse of the Year: Learning Disabilities.
Jodie Shaw, a final year Adult BSc Nursing student, won the award for Outstanding Contribution to Student Affairs

The UoN Medical School

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Architect Laura Highton shortlisted for 2014 Rising Star Award
Laura Highton runs Purcell’s Nottingham studio, which she founded in January 2013. Since opening the studio, Highton has brought in 20 new projects, which was recognised by the Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire Chamber of Commerce, which gave her its 2014 Rising Star Award.(link)

Restoration of Nottingham Castle is one of the projects Laura was invovled in

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Chinook Sciences wins IET Innovation Award 2015
"The IET award for the year’s most outstanding innovation in Power and Energy recognises Chinook’s achievement in successfully developing and deploying the latest generation of its proprietary technology at a bio-energy plant in Oldbury, West Midlands."(link)

Chinook Sciences collect their award

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Human Rights Lawyer Usha Sood wins lifetime achievement award
A lifetime achievement award was given to Nottingham based Human rights barrister Usha Sood at the 2016 Awards Evening of Nottingham Social Action Group Himmah.

Her biography at Trent Chambers comments that:

"Usha has always been at the heart of community matters across the Midlands and offers support to numerous charitable and public interest cases. She also combined this with an academic career as Senior Lecturer in Law at Nottingham Trent University.

Usha has numerous specialist areas including work on child abduction cases, dowry recovery, human rights, child and human trafficking, public law cases, and international family and civil law litigation."

Meanwhile, a Huffington Post interview (which you really should read in its entirety) goes into detail about a number of the cases that Usha has taken on.

Usha Sood

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Jamal Sterrett - Young Creative of the Year 2015
Jamal, an 18-year-old student at New College Nottingham, was crowned ‘The Nottingham Young Creative of the Year’ - and also nabbed the prize for Graphic Design 16-18 year old category and top spot in the Dance category for the same age group (link)

You can see his graphic design poster here and an example of his dance here.

Jamal Sterrett and his award

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Nottingham City Council takes 2015 Employee Benefits Prize
Nottingham City Council beat the likes of BMW, Arup and HSBC to win the 2015 Personnel Today Awards in the Employee Benefits category.

Nottingham City Council employs 7,000 staff and needed to deliver exceptional benefits to help attract, recruit, retain and develop talented employees; but at no cost to the Council. To do this the Council focused on : improving employee engagement and wellbeing to create an engaged and healthy workforce; making workplace savings to help reduce the budget shortfall; attracting, recruiting, developing and retaining talent; and increasing the number of 16 to 24-year-olds employed.

Achievements included substantial savings from annual leave purchase (more than £1.7 million in salary and NI savings since 2012) and the new Carplus scheme; and more than £730,000 in total savings in 2014 - while sickness levels have fallen by 10%. (link)

Nottingham Council also won an award for their Youth Employment Initiative, which has been adopted as a model of best practice for the Skills Funding Agency.br />

Loxley House, Nottingham

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Sheku Kanneh-Mason - Winner of BBC Young Musician 2016


Seventeen-year-old Sheku attends Trinity Catholic Comprehensive School in Nottingham. He holds the ABRSM Junior Scholarship to The Royal Academy of Music, where he studies cello with Ben Davies. Sheku plays in the Chineke! Orchestra, as well as the JRAM Symphony Orchestra. He plays chamber music with the Kanneh-Mason Piano Trio and the Ash String Trio(link)

Sheku Kanneh-Mason

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Image Sources
Nottingham Castle, Amanda Ogelsby, UoN Medical School, Chinook Sciences, Jamal Sterrett, Loxley House, Sheku Kanneh-Mason

Talk : The Crisis in Post-16 Education

Interesting Cafe Sci talk recently by Alan Barker from the University and College Union (UCU). Alan is a teacher of A-Level Mathematics and is involved in a number of projects to make teaching of this subject as effective as possible (see here and here)

Alan's talk was on "The Crisis in Post-16 Education" and was fascinating. The post below below is based on the talk, with some added bloggage and linkage thrown in....

The talk began by mentioning the 1992 Further and Higher Education Act, which allowed polytechnics to become universities; removed FE establishments from LEA control; introduced competition for funding and learners between institutions; and allowed institutions to set their own terms and conditions for staff.

An interesting look at the background and effects of these reforms can be found in this paper by Michael Hammond.

Alan commented on how the changed funding regime had resulted in cuts in the number of courses offered, with one head telling Alan that the situation was now so bad that "there is nothing left to cut" except core courses. Pay was also an issue post-1992, with increases being higher for senior managers than for teaching staff. Data on FE pay in 2012 can be found on P19 of this report , which puts medial senior manager pay at ~£62k and teaching staff at ~£29k.

On the other hand, this article in FE Week quotes the UCE saying "as college staff were being offered a measly pay rise of 0.7 per cent in 2012/13, some of the top earning college leaders were enjoying pay rises of more than 30 per cent." and listing salaries well in excess of 100K for many college principals.

Alan commented on a number of occasions on how, far from being more efficient, the current structure of FE has many mismatches between education rhetoric and actual funding. One example being a Darlington college which had a large number of classes for hairdressing, not because of local need, but because that was where the funding was [although a news (article) suggests it was more to do with pushing girls towards hairdressing as an "easy" option}.

There is a government push towards merging FE colleges in large towns and cities (a process that is happening right now in Nottingham), although Alan stated that there was "no evidence base" that larger establishments were more more financially stable and that a similar policy in Scotland had resulted in a significant drop in drop in student numbers. When the plans were announced, the Scottish Government claimed there would be £50million of efficiency savings each year from 2015/16 and that outcomes for students would improve.

But Audit Scotland found that, although there were savings from reducing teaching staff, "total student numbers were now 36 per cent lower than 2008/09, teaching staff had been cut by 9.2 per cent in the last two years alone and budgets were down £69m between 2011/12 and 2015/16".

On the other hand, Alan also commented on the duplication or courses and lack of co-ordination that occurred in the past when there were several FE colleges in the city. Alan described another way of organising FE establishments, one in which local people, local government, staff and students were more involved; where there was a proper education policy and where there was a move away from a very narrow "skills agenda".

Another remarkable story mentioned in the talk was some comments from Vince Cable that, in 2010, Government officials wanted to cut all FE funding, claiming that "no-one will really notice". In then end, the FE budget was cut by 40% - and student fees went up from £3,375 to £9,000 year to compensate.

According to Alan, the direction of travel for government policy had three arms:

Apprenticeships - A-Levels in schools only - No adult provision for education

In short, you get one shot at education, if you miss out, for whatever reason, you are toast. Alan commented on how this was in conflict for a wish for "lifelong learning" and for people to retrain during their careers.

Q&A
One of the most interesting features of Cafe Sci events is the long Q&A session. Alan's talk was no exception.

One question asked how people could hold local FE providers to account (e.g. relating to finances or student outcomes). Alan's response was there was no way of holding local FE to account. There was no ombudsman, they were not part of local government. In short "you have no control over the education system in your city"

Another person asked whether there were positives in the potential merger of Nottingham FE colleges in terms of offering courses that were not otherwise viable, or more flexible timetables. Alan responded that this was possible and that many educators had some support for the scheme. The questioner also pointed out they had wanted to get some local community organisers onto a course about fuel poverty - something that was desperately relevant to the communities they lived in - but found that the course was £800 (for just three days) - it seemed that there was a failure to look at where the NEEDS were, in favour of looking at where the FUNDING was.

Then, right at the end of the event, there was a remarkable discussion. It centered about the fact that the alumni of FE colleges are invisible, yet we interact with them everyday. But we do not recognise it because the badge on the back of the heating engineers van doesn't say "Central College Nottingham" - it says "Corgi" or "City and Guilds".

The digital designer; the hotel sales executive; the award winning film-maker; the plumber, the famous animator; the Transmission and Asset Manager for National Grid; the award winning fashion designer; the gardener; the IT support technician; the TEDxDerby organiser; the hospital healthcare support workers; the hairdresser; the biomedical scientist, the nurse; the sports coach; the car mechanic and technician - all of them a product of Further Education Colleges.

Interview : Louise Cooke from the Sharewear Clothing Scheme

BFTF has been a fan of the Sharewear Clothing Scheme in Nottingham for some time, so was keen to take advantage of a recent opportunity to interview Louise Cooke, who kickstarted the project a few years ago. Sharewear provides emergency clothing, shoes and bedding to people in Nottingham who are currently in crisis. The organisation operates a strict referral system and is self funded.

A summary of the interview can be found below ! :

History of the scheme
Louise described how, in November 2012, Louise had visited the City of Sao Paulo in Brazil as part of the CAFOD "Connect2 programme" which aims to build links between cities in the developed and developing worlds. During the visit Louise was able to see the work CAFOD partners were doing in the favelas of the city...

"I came back all fired up by the community organising that I'd seen in Brazil and realised that in Nottingham there is great need and deprivation and I wanted to set something up in Nottingham that would tap into that need and help support people through it."

Louise went to recount how, soon after, she had been diagnosed with breastcancer and so had to put these plans on hold whilst undergoing treatment.

Whilst undergoing treatment, Louise's son, Matthew had been volunteering at Bullwell and Bestwood foodbank and mentioned to Louise that families were coming to the Foodbank asking for clothes and that there was nowhere in Nottingham the people in dire economic circumstances could go for free, as-new, good quality clothing and that "you should set it up Mum".

When Louise's treatment was completed and she had fully recovered, Louise approached Joe Tucker and other members of a local "Faith in Action" group at the Our Lady church in Bulwell to help get the scheme off the ground. Father Gerry Murphy at the Infant of Prague Church [backstory to that name here] kindly allowed some space at the front of the church to be used. Louise comments that "and two years on, things have gone crazy!"

Some of Sharewear's stock (by kind permission)

Why are people having to use the Sharewear clothing programme?

Louise described how the number of referral agencies has increased from about a dozen to around seventy and adds that:

"Initially most of our users were people who'd had benefits sanctioned and were trying desperately to get into work and were in a vicious cycle of not being able to do that because they didn't have decent clothes but because they had been sanctioned they couldn't afford to buy decent clothes...

...over the last 8-12 months, we now see a lot of victims of crime; a lot of recovering addicts of every kind; ex-offenders trying to rebuild their lives; and increasingly, recently, working families where both partners are working on zero hours contracts, low income contracts, and simply have to choose between sending their children to school in proper clothes or feeding them or paying bills or whatever it may be..."

..also, right from the outset, we have also helped refugees and asylum seekers, we have been supplying the Women's Culture Exchange at the Refugee Forum with clothing for nearly two years now- and also working with HOST, Arimathea Trust and the Refugee Forum themselves. And recently we have got involved with the co-ordinated response to the Syrian refugees who that are being placed in Nottingham by working with Gedling Borough Council and Nottingham City Council support workers...

A pre-sorted Sharewear pack of essentials,
ready to be provided to someone in need

The Special Question
Everyone who kindly agrees to an interview from BFTF is asked, at the end, a simple question that aims to recognise some of the blessings we have in this country. The question is "What do you think is the best thing about living in the UK?":

"Based on my trip to Sao Paolo in 2012 to the favelas and based on some of my experiences now as someone who works for the charity CAFOD part time, I would say one of the best things about living in the UK is that no matter how poor we are; no matter how austerity kicks in there are always support networks around to help us and also, most importantly, we've always got access to clean safe water and sanitation."

You can find out more about CAFOD here.

Beautiful art at the Infant of Prague Church