Happy Handsworth, Lozells and Aston Hello everyone, there are lots of exciting free activities and events happening with your local communities, for everyone to enjoy. This is a great way for us to stay in touch, share information and stories.

I have listed a few upcoming events, please come along to these events, be in-spired with what your community has to offer.

Active Communities Bringing Communities Together Across Birmingham & Solihull

AUGUST 2019

Contact Us Email Us T: 0121 728 7030 W: www.theaws.co.uk

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Who Are Active Communities? Active Communities is a new and exciting initiative, led by The Active Wellbeing Society and Solihull Council, that aims to create innovative solutions to make it easier for people to access social and physic-al activity. We are doing things differently! This means working to find lots of opportunities to come together and to par-ticipate in creating happier and healthier lives in local communities.Birmingham and Solihull are one of the chosen areas where they are investing to find out what works to help build happier, healthier and safer communities.

We are creating a community crowd platform that can connect and empower people to work together with passion and purpose to make their communities great places to be happy and healthy.  

We Need You! The more local people that get involved the more successful this will be so join us in making a change across our city and surrounding boroughs. This is about breaking down barriers, getting more local people involved, putting more into their communities and in return getting more out.Do you have an activity or event, or know someone or an organisation doing amazing work in your com-munity that you would like to share in your newsletter?

Lozells Gets Active! Two wonderful days of the children, parents, guardians and teachers from St Francis School, Angelsey School and Heathfield School taking over Georges Park, Lozells plogging cleaning up the park of all the rubbish, doing arts and crafts, playing cricket, learning to ride, football with AVFC, rounders and a whole range of fun stuff with our teams Act-ive Communities, Birmingham Bikes, Active Streets, Run Birmingham and Active Parks. Everyone played out instead of being in front of a screen they got active, hung out, used their space in their park, came together to have two enter-taining days in the park and The Birmingham Clean Air team were there.

The reason for the event was to encourage community to use their green space more and get active also by having a street closure on Brougham Street and Villa Street was to encour-age the local families to come together. It was a chance for Aspire and Succeed to tell families about the Happy Healthy Holidays that will be running over the summer holidays, be involved in their area and the things that affect their lives. A time to find out about the organisations and resources that are there for them to access and make their lives better. Councillor Waseem Zaffer and organisations such as Lozells Methodist Church, Aston Villa Foundation, Citizens UK Birm-ingham, Legacy WM all provided their resources and time for this wonderful and fun event.

Discovering Our Green Spaces Last month I visited some amazing places such as the Victoria Jubilee Allotments on the Parklands Estate it is a huge plot of land that local people such as Simon Baddley successful fought for over twenty years to get it re-opened and now residents can grow on the plots they rent, socialise, enjoy the outdoors and use the communal hut on site. They had organised a get together for the local residents and people who use the allotment, it was a chance for me to talk to Danny DeCambre, Penny and all the green fingered people who use the allotments to find out the plans they have to develop some of the land for the older residents, young mums and children to break the isolation for some people, con-nect the families together, grow food, have a space to meet each other and create a positive sense of wellbeing. We took some of the team from Park Lives and they brought along some archery and swing ball to keep the children entertained.

I also spent some time at The Crick Project, Crick Lane it was a derelict piece of land that four volunteers who were ex council workers cleared to create a green space in the heart of Handsworth. The community champions such as Abbie and Faith have been working really hard to create and keep the hidden space on Crick Lane open and would like to see it as a community hub, running environmental and lifestyle workshops upcycling materials, doing art, socialising and a general gardening space. If you like to enjoy this tranquil green space, then go and visit it is open every Wednesday 12-3.00pm weather permitting. They have plans to get the community more involved in using this open space to grow, it has a sensory garden and outdoor play area for children would you like to support them by main-taining the site and embrace some me time, meet local people, make new friends, enjoy some fresh air and good vibes? We hope to be supporting these community spaces through the Wilds Project so watch this space!

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Co-Operative Fortnight This event was held in Handsworth Park by the play area in front of the Handsworth Wellbeing Centre, it was a great way of telling the com-munity about the benefits of what it means to be a business run and owned by its members, how it

Dance to Health Dance to Health is a falls prevention programme for the over 50’s, which combines evidence-based physio-therapy techniques and the creativity of dance. Led by a fully trained dance and PSI instructor, the weekly classes build on strength, stability, balance and mental well-being. The classes at Ladywood Community and Health Centre and Lozells Community centre will re-start in September 2019 after the summer break, please contact Jodie Stus on 07470799540 or email jodiestus@ae-sop.org for enquiries. Photocredit - Ranjan Jolly

Welcome to Birmingham's Biggest FREE Holiday Activity Programme with Great Food Join us for 4 hours - 4 days - 4 weeks this summerVaried programmes for 15,000 kids and teens each weekGet active, explore, cook, craft and play (all kit provided)Make new friends and bring old friendsEnjoy great summer meals and healthy snacks daily catering to all dietary needsOver a hundred local venues including parks, children's centres, youth centres, schools, leisure centres, sports clubs, faith centres and community centres – choose the one that suits you best!

#FoodAndFunInBrum

Note: some of the venues taking part in the Happy Healthy Holidays programme may require a responsible adult to accompany a child. Please check with the venue for more details before you attend. Self-registra-tion accepted by young people from aged 13years old upwards.

Watch out for these banners at club venues in your neighbourhood: https://www.sportbirmingham.org/HHH

Are You Interested?

We are planning now for the latter part of the year, are you interested or running any events for Black His-tory Month? Are you interested in trying art, it’s a relaxing fun way to relax and meet new people I will be running free sessions for beginners as I am going to be giving some of my time to deliver a 8 week program from September or October in the Handsworth area , you must live in B18, B19, B20 0r B21 to be able to attend please contact me via the contact details on this newsletter and mention my name Dee Manning Local Community Action Networker.

FREE Yoga at Soho House

Would you like to learn relaxation techniques and breathing exercises? Would you like to sit and chat with other ladies, mothers, daughters, grandmothers and granddaughters?

If so, come and join us for FREE refresh-ments.

When: Every Wednesday 9:30 -10:30 at Soho House, hosted by Legacy WM Location: Soho House, Soho Avenue, B18 5LB W: www.legacy-wm.org T: 0121 348 8159 M: 07861 310 802

What’s On?