Category: Wansteadium

Geoff Wilkinson writes on Wanstead Daily Photo: “Sadly no sign of the eclipse, too much cloud cover but here’s a nice picture anyway…The river Roding forms the eastern boundary of Wanstead. Most people know that it’s there but I’ll bet not that many have seen it in all its beauty. Many people may glimpse it as they drive over the bridge near the Redbridge roundabout but it really is worth a stroll along its banks. This picture shows it passing through Wanstead Park, see what I mean about the beauty.”

Whipps Cross hospital suffers from bullying, and doesn’t have enough staff to provide the right level of care for patients, a review has found. It has been put into special measures following a report by the watchdog the Care Quality Commission.

The BBC is reporting the concerns include:

â–    Insufficient staffing levels to provide safe care, high use of agency staff and low staff morale

â–    A persisting culture of bullying and harassment

â–    Bed occupancy that is too high

â–    A failure to meet national waiting time targets

The hospital trust says it will introduce the necessary steps to improve the service.

GOOD NEWS FOR BEES
The pioneering Seeds for Snaresbrook campaign – which launched last year by asking residents to “adopt” tree pits near their houses and then to plant bee-friendly flowers – is again offering people free seeds.

Ann Williams, co-ordinator of the Wanstead and Woodford Friends of the Earth says the group still has seeds for sowing in April in spare pieces of ground, including people’s gardens. And she adds that people who live in Redbridge but are outside Snaresbrook ward can also request seeds. Anyone interested should get in touch via their website – Wanstead and Woodford Friends of the Earth – or their Facebook page.

BAD NEWS FOR HEDGEHOGS

*Note for new readers. This.

Bravo Wanstead. 

Organiser Nicola Jarratt writes:

Thanks Wansteadium and all your readers who donated! This is not the end of our fundraising, but just the beginning. This first tranche of fundraising means that we have now obtained charitable status and thus opens the door to match funding grants, hopefully enabling us to raise even more for the playground. The project is now moving into phase 2 and we’re looking into the best way of receiving further donations. If you would like to donate in the meantime, please email us at wansteadplayground@gmail.com and we’d be delighted to hear from you!

The final fundraising push for the Wanstead Playground is under way with just over two weeks to raise the final £2,000. At the time of writing, the total raised stands at £11,523 with just 16 days to go.

Because of the way crowdfunding works, if it misses the target, the whole project falls. One of the organisers, Louise Meenaghan (whose original email to Wansteadium got this whole ball rolling) said: “We’re running around like headless chickens, pulling all the stops out to hopefully get there. If we don’t hit that magic figure, then all the online pledges are given back to people and we have failed. Heart-breaking. We’ve had amazing support from local people, the High Street – the majority of the Estate agents have donated – Keatons pledging a whopping £1,000. A local lady pledged £500 – we’re blown away and so so grateful.”

One way to help raising the rest of the money is to try to win an enormous Easter Egg made by Belgique… Watch this video for more details…

Or just donate via the crowdfunding page.

Geoff Wilkinson writes on Wanstead Daily Photo: “I’m always drawn in by bold horizontal lines in pictures, I couldn’t walk past this garage door without taking a couple of shots. If you stand back and photograph them from a distance quite often they don’t really do anything, however if you get close and shoot along them that’s quite a different story.”