Peas on Earth and Goodwill to all Men, Women and Children. From Han Solo, no less

Quick Update

Arul and I have just put a funding application in for the proposed Health Centre project. Joe, Anne and I will be putting together Southgate Phoenix edition 2 in the coming month or so. About the market we are awaiting the Council's decision on street trading, due very soon. 9th September meeting was attended by Cllr Edward Smith, the leader of the Southgate Residents Association SRA, Anne, Joe, Mark and Archie and 7 apologies. The main topics of discussion were the market, our relationship with the SRA, the health project proposal, the newsletter and the possibility of a dedicated Southgate Town website. Next Anchor meeting date, tbc (in newsletter if not before).

9th September

The next Community Anchor Meeting will be at

Tuesday 9th September 7.30pm
Dolce Mare Cafe, Ashfield Parade

Find below suggested agenda for meeting. Please kindly pass on this invitation to others who may be interested.

Proposed Agenda:

1. Market Update, Report on Petition and Discussion about hearing on 17th Sept.
2. Alan Pullinger Project - Youth Engagement
3. STAR Association Update
4. Website
5. 2nd Edition Phoenix
6. Introducing Arul's Health Project - Proposed Sunday Provision
7. Belgian Waffle Party
8. Local Sports Groups
9 Fundraising report
10. Next Meeting
11. AOB

Has anyone got further suggestions for the agenda..?
If so, pls comment / email southgatephoenix@gmail.com

Urgent

TO RESIDENTS, TRADERS & OTHER SUPPORTERS

Please read and sign our petition by scrolling down to the bottom of this post and clicking on 'comments' link below.

ASHFIELD PARADE MARKET PETITION

We would like to see a Sunday street market in Ashfield Parade along with the freedom for all cafes and restaurants there to have tables and chairs - subject to pavement access - outside their establishments. We support the initiative of the Community Anchor for a regular Sunday community-owned street market, involving local farm and allotment grown produce and other specialities not otherwise available in Southgate. We strongly believe this to be in the best interests of Southgate, and ask the Council to respect the wishes of Southgate residents and traders by giving them the chance to work together in common cause. Therefore, please grant all the cafes and restaurants in the Parade the right to have their tables and chairs set out outside, and the Anchor association a free license to Sunday street trade in Ashfield Parade, so they can self-fund their community-cohesion and citizenship building project.

Please sign this petition by putting your name in the comments section below or texting your name, postcode and words "support market" to 0785 439 0408

For copy of the Council's draft street trading policy, go here:
Draft Street Trading Policy

And/ or respond to the Council's questionnaire that goes with it, visit here:
Questionannaire

To sign this petition: simply click on "comments" (below), fill in the comments box with name and postcode and whether you are a resident or a trader then publish by clicking on "anonymous" and "publish comment"

If this is too complicated you can also text or email your support to 0785 439 0408 / greenpeaproject@gmail.com or contact the Council direct to tell them you support the Ashfield Parade project (on 0208 379 4743)

For more info on market project, Veg Revolution
Cheers, Mark

The Art of Veg Revolution

Green Pea Southgate believes that local community self-governance and local provision of public services are the way forward.

A civil society political-economic synthesis which naturally flows from the old state versus private provision debate, but which also encompasses: egalitarian decision making, grassroots planning, a participatory budget and the drawing of commonsense ward boundaries based, here in Southgate on the old, postal N14 neighbourhood. Local decision making, and therefore also: greater administrative efficiency and political accountability, increasing community cohesion and resilience, a lower ecological footprint and an overall upsurge in political freedom, civil liberty and.. joy!

Therefore, using the Southgate Street Market as a pilot scheme we call on Enfield Borough Council to let Southgate N14 show, starting with this modest proposal, what's really possible.

Our request for a community owned market will be formally put to the Council by way of petition at this evening's (Borough Council run) Local Area Forum Meeting. Come along if you can, it's a good chance to air your views and hear others too. Meeting starts at 7.30pm and is being held at the Bourne Methodist Church, the Bourne, N14.

FYI First picture featured is taken of long-time local Hadley Wood farmer, Chris Savva's lovely produce at Palmer's Green Farmer's Market. Chris and other local producers are keen to line Ashfield Parade with fresh produce as a nice alternative to ASDA. Other members are keen that allotment holders can sell their produce too. And we must have music and nice things for the children.

Rather than, for those same children putting up bounty hunter signs on Ashfield Parade. Second picture, the Council's recent 'bag a tagger' - community cohesion building - initiative. talk about 'yob' culture. Blog culture response = ahem.

May 20, 25 & Beyond

Ladies, gentlemen, good people of Southgate, you are cordially invited to join us (on the dates set out above) to begin the debate, team building and democratic action now necessary for genuine, commonsense solutions to bear fruit in this lovely lovely town.

You can find out more about the concept of a Community Anchor by visiting Community Alliance

Community Anchors:

• encourage people from different cultural and economic classes to get to know one another, united in concern for the locality they inhabit
• ensure great participation in decision-making about local affairs
• practise community-led solutions to social problems
• bridge the interests and aspirations of local people and governing bodies
• liberate the power and resources of local people
• develop resilient community spirit
• support individuals to fulfil their dreams

Yes, we want to build cohesion, something that brings people together to restore the community fabric. But also a new, creative movement: can we beat the beastly bureacratic machine in a skilful, artful and inspiring way - something genuinely-of-the-people to put Southgate Town & Green, Enfield N14 (and all its beautiful Hertfordshire surrounds) right up there where it belongs - on the World City map?

Click here for Next Meeting

Community Anchor Meetings

Southgate Community Anchor
Click here for: Next Meeting

This project is a new initiative aimed at bringing the various groups making up the Southgate community together on a regular basis, to seek community-led, democratic and ecologically sustainable solutions. You can find details of the proposed agenda for both meetings below this post.

Tuesday 20th May
Community Anchor Forum Planning Meeting and Consultation
Morning session 10am-12noon and evening 7.30pm-9.30pm
Meetings at St Andrews Church Hall, Chase Side next to ASDA

Main Launch Meeting | Sunday 25th May 1-4pm
Community Anchor Forum Presentation and Group Discussion
With shared lunch, music & other refreshments
Alan Pullinger Centre, High Street (next to the Fire Station)


Community Anchors:

• encourage people from different cultural and economic classes to get to know one another, united in concern for the locality they inhabit
• ensure great participation in decision-making about local affairs
• practise community-led solutions to social problems
• bridge the interests and aspirations of local people and governing bodies
• liberate the power and resources of local people
• develop resilient community spirit
• support individuals to fulfil their dreams
  

A People’s Plan | Grassroots Consultation

We hope you’ll also be interested to take part in our Southgate Locality Survey. It’s been developed in consultation with Southgate residents and will contribute directly to the agenda for the Anchor project. Ideas raised in it will be fed into the initial meetings and overall project. If you’re interested to receive a copy, please contact me at the address below.

For more info contact Mark at:
65 Burleigh Gardens | 0785 439 0408 | greenpeaproject@gmail.com

Proposed Agenda Items - tbc

Introducing Community Anchor / C421 Project
Maybe Show Film
Introducing Concept of People's Plan | People In Common
Participatory Budget | Economic Democracy
Proposed Community Account
The Paradox of Ward Boundaries
Who Owns Southgate Project

Red Tape Issues
Parking
Ashfield Parade Licences
New Licences - Chase Side - Costa/Starbucks etc
Amusement Arcade

Major Projects
Lunch Stop Two
Newsletter
Youth Citizenship Engagement - September Pullinger Project
Police Station
Future of Leisure Centre
Street Market - Local Farm Produce - Introducing Chris Savva
Future of Ashfield Parade
Local & Mental Health Service - progress report

Other
Asylum/Migrant Issues


Agreed Actions
First Campaign ?
Local Honours Ceremony
Next Meeting - date /venue ?
Summer Sunday Picnics :-)

This wish list is ever-evolving, thanks to popular input and the results of our survey. To suggest other agenda items, pls email greenpeaproject@gmail.com

Thanks, M

Local Health Service

In an attempt to tackle the connected mental, emotional and community health problems prevalent in modern society Green Pea aims to pilot an arts based, free-to-use and local community-driven health clinic.

Essentially, we believe the best health solution will be found in small, independent and innovative health clinics, permanently situated and offering local patients community resident driven mental health services.

Patient feed will be from GPs and other local clinical referrals [*], and the services (which will be neither private, nor state provided, but administered independently) to involve a variety of effective therapeutic activities, provided daily in a local community-based setting, with detailed scheduling in advance.

Therapies will involve a sustained process to improve the state of each individual's overall mental and emotional well-being, encouraging personal healing in the context of the motto 'physician, heal thyself' (encouraging each individual to discover the practices that are most appropriate for them) whilst also encouraging a natural process of participant and community friendship building through the very local nature of the project.

This process will take local patients out of the usual ineffective treatment loop for patients with mental and emotional health issues (drug/one off psychologist referral before being left to their own devices) and instead put them into a healing setting that actively looks at the root causes of eg addiction, depression, obsessive compulsive behaviour, anxiety, anomie and other modern mental health ailments.

We are now recruiting a team to provide a regular programme of activities such as meditation, music, art, dance and yoga therapies, CBT, NLP, Karuna, martial art, sport/physical activities, local walks, intellectual/academic presentations, life coaching for skills such as career and debt/money management, job hunting and relationships etc etc.

[* aside from GPS, other professional individuals who might refer to us could include youth workers, occupational therapists, psychologists and nurses]

If you would like to get involved in this exciting project, either as a therapist, youth worker, local GP, potential funder/networker or patient, please contact Mark, Arul, Illi & Mahdi via
greenpeaproject@gmail.com or
0785 439 0408

"Health, contentment and trust, are your greatest possessions
Freedom, your greatest joy"

Community Anchor

We're now undertaking a Locality Survey. The purpose of this survey is to get to know the local community, find out what interests and skills local people hold, and begin the process of bringing people together for a better Southgate. The survey will be casting out for opinion & interest in a number of initiatives, including the Sunday Street Market and Local Health project, and we'll also be encouraging local resident and worker attendance at the forthcoming series of Community Anchor meetings. The first of these to be held on Tuesday 20th and Sunday 25th May.You can read more about the concept of a Community Anchor, here.
For more information about these meetings, or if you'd like to receive a copy of the survey in Word to comment on and/or fill in and return, please email us at greenpeaproject@gmail.com

Update

As some of you know, we've a host of initiatives in the pipeline, and we're now awaiting the outcome of different meetings before we move forward further, specifically about the Health Project & Street Market, but also about funding streams and use of TfL land (at Mayfair Terrace) for a Community Garden project.

This site will updated soon to let you know where we're at in some more detail. In the meantime, please scroll down to read more, and thanks for your patience.

A Real London Pea Souper

Readers will be happy to hear that the Green Pea soup plot has now thickened considerably, although there is, as to be expected still a fair bit of stirring to be done. In the best (or worst) of the modern tradition, absolutely everything got consumed in the market. So, my apologies (a) for being a bad capitalist (b) as with my garden, for not having tended this blog more regularly..

Thankfully, the fog has now lifted. Aside from the impending, exciting return of Revolutionary PM Tea we have four other pieces of news, about (1) a brazen attempt from trusted local parties to steal the market right from under our very nose (2) an equally brazen theft of aforementioned koanic building design by the powers-that-be (3) a little story about a big camera and how, as with that delightful film about the rat who becomes a gourmet chef, the best ideas will often spring up in unlikeliest of places and lastly, (4) terrible red tape.



Verily, the less said about the first and last probably the better, for fear of upsetting fragile egos, not to mention using clubs where bridges of light may well suffice. So, instead, let's focus on the middle two, which are not unconnected and well worth recounting. Middles making the very best stories, and bridges, after all..

About Green Pea

Green Pea is an arts-for-education organisation, with charitable purposes started when a number of Southgate residents met randomly, at least two members falling in love in Mr Bagels Cafe on Ashfield Parade, in 2007. The little group were enthused about the need to make a difference to one another's lives, and the future of Southgate. From that origin came the idea that wherever possible a locality should be providing services for itself, from youth provision to mental health, from street market to public events, and from street cleaning to overall democratic self-governance (and tax raising powers)..

Green Pea is not associated with any political party, but its genesis as a public project came out of the grassroots 'People in Common' Parliament Square Picnic initiative. This started in 2005 with the launch of a weekly Sunday picnic against the Government's no-protest zone around Parliament.

The picnic united a diverse group of people in defence of freedom of expression in the vicinity of Parliament, and stemming from this in turn came a series of debates & public fora about the British Constitution, and the path to true democratic fulfillment. This series of fora, called C421 or the Campaign for a 21st Century Constitution concluded that the only way to build a truly democratic constitution is to start at the bottom. Hence our desire for a publically owned market, for local services to be owned and run by the people and the concept of community anchor meetings..

1st July 2008


A. Green Pea Arts Constitution

Our objective is to use the power of art & social enterprise to rebuild and enhance community cohesion and promote friendship, health and good citizenship in and around Southgate.

As a community arts organisation we aim to attract funding through collective social enterprise and if necessary, public sector grants. We are now in the process of setting up a regular street market, the rents from which we hope to make a source of funding for the wider community. Membership of Green Pea and / or the community anchor project is open to all.

October 19th 2007 with update 20th July 2008

B. Our Ethos

1. communities should be running things for themselves, both decisions about their locality and, where possible all other services such as street cleaning, recycling, health, local market etc etc.

2. everyone must be given the opportunity to work out what they really want to create with their lives, in other words if 'everyone is an artist', what is your art? in citizenship terms, this is identity politics, 'the personal is the political' and how to move from citizen-consumer to citizen-creator.

3. we need a process and methodology of how to connect the two, the path to individual self-realization - and its rewards - but also the contribution of that realization to public service provision, or stewardship (of system and society) or, in old fashioned terminology, the common weal.

4. this process can't be rushed, nor can its importance be avoided.

17th January 2008

C. Where We're At - Update
We’re now casting out for support and interest in developing these, or any other relevant Southgate-based community led projects.

(1) Southgate Town Market

We want to see a regular, eclectic, carnivalesque market with performance art to bring in punters, revitalise and Southgate Town on the map. We’re now applying for a licence to hold a Sunday market near to Southgate tube station: a market for local and international art, craft and food, with activities for the kids and room for other social, environmental and educational enterprise. So, we’re looking for artists, craftspeople, musicians and other potential stallholders, sponsors or enterprising individuals to help make this happen.

(2) Community Centre

We’d like to see an independent local community space, with garden and cafe, in central Southgate. We believe there should be a space, to be held and run by local people for the community as they see fit, in every community: an intercultural space that exists for no one interest group, but for all. A place where people from all walks of life can get to know one another, fostering community spirit and developing positive, community-minded solutions, together.


(3) Green Pea Youth Projects

Two potential projects have now been identified: the first at the Alan Pullinger Centre in Southgate, and the second across the Borough. We’re presently putting together a proposal for both. More information on this will follow.

(4) Newsletter

We are now working on the first edition of our newsletter, PM Tea to be accompanied by the survey mentioned below and a call to C421/People in Common meetings.

(5) Locality Survey

In order to gauge support for these, and help identify other key projects, we'll be conducting a Q&A survey of the locality. This survey will include open-ended questions of immediate and long-term concern to Southgate residents and users, including the question of a regular market and the future of Ashfield Parade.

The broad purpose of the survey is to map the area in terms of resources interests and goodwill, to identify issues that are important to the members of the Southgate locality so we can move them up the public agenda, to locate cultural leaders and other interested parties to help move forward the various projects.

After the survey is done we hope to be able to connect those interested in working on the same issues and projects with each other, moving towards a series of C421 meetings that are intercultural, Southgate future orientated and community led.

(6) Local Health Service

We want to ensure the provision of a local community driven holistic health service, something that takes patients out of the usual drug/one off referral left to their own devices treatment loop for addiction, depression, anxiety and into a more sustained healing process operating out of a single location.

If you are a practitioner interested and qualified to work in emotional health we want to hear from you. The basic idea is to secure a space in which to create a regular programme of activities such as meditation, music, art, dance, plus Cognitive Behaviour therapy, NLP and intellectual/academic presentations, life coaching for skills such as career and debt/money management, job hunting and relationships etc. For more info on this project, please contact Arul Vettivelu on 0773 4921607

And if you have any questions about, or are interested in helping with any of these projects, please do get in touch. Email greenpeaproject@gmail.com, text/call Mark on 0785 439 0408 or join the group at http://groups.google.co.uk/group/southgatelondon

17th January 2008

Christmas Markets

Phew. We managed it. After what seemed like months of preparation we promoted a successful street market, transforming the end of Ashfield Parade each Monday in the month of December. Thanks to Elena at TfL, Zoe, Justine & Rhianna at Enfield Council, Mary Rose at the Nightingale Trust Hospice, Paul, Hannah and Charlie at the Enfield Independent, David Burrowes MP, Mehmet & Cem at Icon 3, Andy and Susie (Saxy Andy featured here with Susie Dalrymple, Santa with the maddest look in his eye, please be reassured he is gently smiling underneath cotton beard) Ginger & Rich in Texas, plus local residents & traders extraordinaire Anne & Peter, Ed, Arul, Sinead, Lucie, Georgia, Luca & Ali for everything they did to make it possible.

In spite of highwinds, no-shows, freezing weather and host of other logistical problems we created a cross between a village, mini-festival and temporary utopia with our Christmas street markets, and on Xmas Eve we were blessed with the presence of a good number of locals who came to sing carols along with the Enfield Brass Band and Father Christmas, who gave out sticks for a ceremonial smashing of pinata.

The aim of the street market was to support local artists, grassroots community organisations and other creative traders, while at the same time team building for a regular street market. And, to contribute to the town's overall economic regeneration and creative revenue for other Green Pea projects, some of which you can read about here, but only the less Top Secret ones. You can see lots more pictures of the market at the Flickr photo link to the right.