I am really pleased to announce that Peabody a Housing Association  based in London and Ashram Housing Association based in the West Midlands have decided to become partners with People’s Voice Media.   Both organisations are keen to run community reporter programmes as well as work with us to develop social media centres.  This is great news and now means that we are working with 6 housing associations across England.

Peabody owns and manages more than 19,000 homes across the capital. They operate in London and manage a range of tenures, including social housing, leasehold, shared ownership, supported housing, key-worker accommodation and commercial units. Peabody also provides a range of community programmes for residents and neighbourhoods, including employment and training programmes; health and well-being initiatives; activities for younger and older people; welfare benefits advice and financial inclusion and family support programmes.

Ashram Housing Association provides 1,100 homes and culturally appropriate community-based services to thousands of people. There residents mainly live in Birmingham and Coventry. Ashram provides general housing, care schemes for older people and shelters for those escaping domestic violence. They also support  socialbreakfast a pioneering project  for young people who want to make their life, their community and their world better.

Keith one of our Community Reporters went along to Salford’s Got Talent on September 3rd at The Willows. The event was to support   Christie hospital radiotherapy  machine at Salford Royal Hospital.  The judges included Ed Blaney, Terry Christian and Peter Hook. Silky DJ’s also attend and  Michael Gomez was on security aswell!!

See some of the talent

Episode 2

Episode 3

Episode 4 And the winner is

Community reporter Jo Booth went to Kersal Vale Allotment  horticultural show  where she explored  the art of onion and potato judging.  She also met Keith Gillet to have a chat about the Greenhouse used solely by the disabled at Kersal Vale allotments.

People’s Voice Media Community Reporters have been working with Tesco, Salford City Council, Job Centre Plus, Salford City College, Work Solutions, Connexions, Trinity, and The  Skills Funding Agency to record the recruitment of over 60 local people to the new Tesco store in Salford.  Tesco worked in partnership with the agencies who created an 8-week training course to help people apply for these vacancies.  The whole process has been  documented by People’s Voice Media community reporters  which included members of the Graduate Gateway course who People’s Voice Media have taken on and given a work placement to gain experience and build confidence.

BBC North West tonight presenter Ranvir Singh came to the  People’s Voice Media Social Media Centre in Salford yesterday  to work with our community reporters.  Ranvir worked with the reporters  on improving their journalist, interviewing and  technical skills in video and audio along with editing skills.  The session was very positively received by the reporters who felt that it helped them  become better reporters.

The session was organised through  the  partnership between Connect and Create BBC Academy and  People’s Voice Media. See the video below for comments on what people thought of the session.

Janice Bernstein shares with us the art of making Challa. Challah (bread) making is a weekly tradition within the Orthodox Jewish Community and is made to be served on the Sabbath (Shabot).

Community Reporters in Preston receive their Communty Reporter badges. This was a joint project with  Contour Housing.  The reporters have been exploring issues on the Callom and Fishwick estate in Preston.  The project has also linked up with the Bespoke project in Preston supported by UCLAN who have been working with the group to develop design solutions to the issue raised.

We are currently exploring with Contour Housing a joint venture to develop a Preston Voice Media social enterprise. This project is only one part of the work we do with Housing Associations. For more information about this programme or our broader work with housing associations please contact gary@peoplesvoicemedia.co.uk. See the article about the project in the Lancashire Evening Post

People’s Voice Media has been succesful in a European  Lifelong Leaning bid to develop community reporters across europe with partners from Italy, Spain, Turkey, Germany and Hungary.  The programme will work with partner agencies who our a mixture of local authorities, not for profits, SME’s and Universities. The project will  develop community reporters to support consultation and engagement by these organisations.  This is an exciting project that will use social media in a creative and innovative way to improve local voice and dialogue between communities, individuals and agencies.

I am pleased to announce that People’s Voice Media will be running a community reporter programme in Tulloch Court in Blackpool a residential care home operated by Great Places Housing.   The project will work with residents, staff and families to develop content for the scheme. This content could be blog posts, video or audio and will be developed through the People’s Voice Media Community Reporter programme  whose aim is to train up residents, families and staff.  Content will vary and will be led by the needs of the participants, but examples might include promoting the scheme or different services within the scheme, information about techniques used for dementia care, recordings of memories, or using local archive material.  All content will be placed on the Looking Local channel being developed, also on the website of the scheme and My Great Places website. For more information about this programme or our broader work with housing associations please contact gary@peoplesvoicemedia.co.uk.

The 17th of August 2010 was a great day for Edge lane Allotments as we hosted the
Business In The Community, Community Impact Team Meeting.

Business In The Community Have provided some great challenge days for Edge Lane Allotments
Providing days out for company's around Manchester where the company's staff get a day out of the office
and help community projects, without the help of these company's and there support Edge Lane Allotments community plot
would not be where it Is today.

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Well the open day was quieter this year, not as many stalls as last year,but still a great turnout .
Profit was up wastage was down. Success.

The main event this year was the Veg Factor !!!!! to show five veg on a plate. (Peters Idea not mine )
When we first went round the site and asked not many people were that interested (yeah right )
I might just put some in for a laugh said one man.
I don't think I'll have anything ready said another.

Let me tell you there were thirteen entrants and all very good ones, so for the first comp

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Here are some photos of the floods in Manchester. Roads have turned to rivers.

Eating Fruit on an empty stomach

Dr Stephen Mak treats terminal ill cancer patients by "un-orthodox" way and many patients recovered. He explains: before he is using solar energy to clear the illnesses of his patients. He believes on natural healing in the body against illnesses. See the article below.

Letter to original email writer:

Dear Shereen,

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We would like to inform you of our plans for a joint 'Garden Market produce exchange. EMERGE's local food works project and Manchester Creative Collective's Food Hub are partnering up to
host two pilot events in late August one in the North East of the City and one in the South.
We are hoping to bring together small scale local producers, mostly from local allotment sites but also local cake bakers, jam makers and the like, to exchange produce using a LETS (local exchange

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DON'T FORGET
EDGE LANE ALLOTMENTS WILL BE HOLDING ITS ANNUAL OPEN DAY ON SUNDAY THE 15TH OF AUGUST FROM 12 TILL 4PM.

A selection of photo's taken this year on edge lane allotments

DON'T FORGET
EDGE LANE ALLOTMENTS WILL BE HOLDING ITS ANNUAL OPEN DAY ON SUNDAY THE 15TH OF AUGUST FROM 12 TILL 4PM.

Ollie Wiva Twist is a performance project run by Big Lottery Project with Salford Foundation, aiming to change the negative perceptions of young people within the Salford area.

The Performance is on Wednesday 25th of August at the Lowry Theatre.

The production is based on the well known and loved musical Oliver! but brought into the 21st century and given are really modern twist.

The young people have driven the project from the beginning  from all aspects, from creating music in the recording studio, to writing the script, the costume design and even promotion and marketing. The group worked with People’s Voice Media to produce a film about their experience . See the blog posts and video

WELL ITS THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN, EDGE LANE ALLOTMENTS WILL BE HOLDING ITS ANNUAL OPEN DAY ON SUNDAY THE 15TH OF AUGUST FROM 12 TILL 4PM.

THE RIVALRY IS GETTING QUITE TENSE AT THE ALLOTMENTS AS WE WILL BE HOLDING OUR FIRST VEG COMPETITION,
OH KNOW I'M NOT REALLY INTERESTED SAID ONE GUY GUARDING HIS 17 STONE MAMMOTH ONION.
SO IT SHOULD BE FUN TO SEE WHO DOES ACTUALLY ENTER.

ALSO WE ARE HAVING OUR CAKE COMPETITION ONLY I WON'T BE JUDGING IT (SHAME)
THERE WILL BE A TOMBOLA, LUCKY DIPS FOR THE KIDS FACE PAINTING AND SOAK THE PLOT STEWARD WITH A SPONGE.

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I am pleased to announce that 7 new staff reporters have joined our team at the Salford Social Media Centre. The staff reporters are part of the future jobs fund and will be with us for 6 months.  They will be undertaking community reporter assignments across Greater Manchester and placing content on our various distribution channels.

The garden has literally exploded with growth in the past month with the warm, wet weather providing perfect growing conditions. Our potatoes and tomatoes are, luckily, under the cover of the polytunnel and should therefore be insulated from the risk of blight which accompanies wet and warm summer weather. We will soon be starting to build another raised bed to be filled with oriental greens such as pak-choi which will provide a good source of greens as the weather eventually begins to get colder.

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