Local Area Action Planning
Kentish Town Community Centre played host to our action planning event last Saturday (October 1st). It was a great half day for the 50 or so people who showed up to express their views on a number of themes. After partnership chair, Meric Apak, opened the event, and invited Cllr. Theo Blackwell to talk to local residents about regeneration work and community participation, the real work of the day got underway. There were opportunities for residents to learn about some of the facts and figures about their neighbourhood, before writing down their views on what would make Caversham a better place to live in. Then everyone was split into groups to tackle one of the issues that they had identified as being most important to the area. Children and young people, health, community participation and anti-social behaviour were all grappled with by local residents. When (almost) everyone had exhausted their views on the subjects, we all congregated to report back to one another. With the business of the day over and done with, lunch, and a raffle closed off a very successful day. Watch this space for a report of participants' views.

Caversham and Highgate Newtown
Caversham Neighbourhood Partnership has been in a unique "Joint Partnership Project" for nearly 2 years now. This has seen Caversham and Highgate develop close ties between the Chairs and Vice chairs of the partnerships, and has resulted in the organisation of the first meeting of all the neighbourhood partnerships in Camden. The most visible manifestation of the joint project has been that the partnerships have 'shared' a worker. Because of this, each partnership can tap into the good ideas of the other. Highgate's website is here so take a look at what our partners are getting up to. With the 2 year post of the joint worker coming towards an end, the partnerships have hired regeneration consultant Mark McNestry to evaluate the pros and cons of our partnerships teaming up in this way. He'll be interviewing a few 'key players' in both partnerships and coming up with his conclusions. He's then going to present those conclusions to us both; details of time/place to follow, but its likely to be around the beginning of November.

The Caversham Website
Caversham Neighbourhood Partnership’s best kept secret is at www... oh, that's right, you're already here, you don't need the address. Why such a secret? Well it was set up by one of our more computer literate partners. In IT jargon it is a ‘database-driven website’. In plain English this means that the different partners that make up the CNP can each have their own section of the website to update. So, CEPO can have its bulletin, Peckwater TRA can have their section to update, and so on. At the moment, it is a wasted resource, so I’ll be working at letting people know that it’s out there, and if they are interested, showing them how to update their section. Let me know if you want to advertise anything using our website.

Caversham Elder People’s Organisation
The Caversham older people’s network is fast developing into a mature organisation. After lengthy deliberation it has changed its name to CEPO (Caversham Elder People’s Organisation) and has chosen a logo, soon to be revealed on the next edition of the newsletter. The next older people’s event is to be held on Thursday July 28th at Kentish Town Community Centre from 1pm to 4pm. It is entitled “CEPO’s Sizzling Summer Social”. For more information on this event, or if you know of groups of ‘elder’ people who would like to go, contact Michael Bond on 020 7974 3864.

And finally….
Meric Apak and I attended an event entitled “Neighbourhoods of the Future: Real power for local people” at which Phil Woolas, new minister for local government spoke about the government’s commitment to this principle. The event was extremely well represented by Camden staff, councillors and by a couple of the neighbourhood partnerships, so it was good to see just how seriously the ‘neighbourhood agenda’ is being taken by all those involved in it. It also taught me personally a valuable lesson: That the rumours are true. If you chain your bike to anything within a square mile of the houses of parliament it will be removed and placed in Charring Cross police station. Read what Ministers have to say.