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During lockdown, and throughout the summer months, Bearwood Community Hub has encouraged residents to get creative and make their own artwork to showcase in a community art exhibition. Until we can host a safe and socially distanced event, we have decided to host the artwork online for everyone to see and appreciate. It’s right here . And here’s a sneak peak: And because we’ve had such lovely entries we think might inspire others, we’ve decided to extend the deadline to 31 O

Following on from our funding news , update from Sally Taylor, our project manager. A reminder: What is Bearwood Hub? Our first ever Bearwood Business Network meeting in January 2020 It’s not a physical space - yet! But it is developing. In the 6 months prior to lockdown Bearwood Community Hub CIC (not-for-profit Community Interest Company) was an idea for how the wonderful community spaces at St Mary’s Church on Bearwood Road could be used again, for us all to benefit from

We have great news! We’ve been successful in getting funding to finish off our pre-lockdown development work (community engagement and architectural feasibility study) and to build on some of the ace community initiatives that have started during the pandemic to support people in our community who are increasingly vulnerable because of Covid. Thank you to the National Lottery Community Fund for their support, it’s really amazing to have in these tough times. Now we can start

We are ridiculously excited to let you know about our newest project! In collaboration with Grand Union Arts, an awesome summer design project will support local young people to create their own design company. The Bearwood Young Persons’ Design Company. During July & August young people aged 16-18 will have the opportunity to work with artists and designers to develop creative products for sale and to learn about setting up a business. Young people and parents have been tell

We are delighted to be part of the brand new Sandwell Borough of Sanctuary network, working to ensure that Sandwell is a welcoming place for people seeking refuge. Here's a pic of Sally pledging our commitment to be part of the Borough of Sanctuary network Bearwood is very well represented in the Network, and so it should be - we have the nation’s very first library of Sanctuary! The network is launching today, Saturday 20 June, at the end of Refugee week. Please take a look

Accomplished at crochet? Experienced urban hen keeper? Inspiring spoken word artist? Talented designer? Whatever your skill, we can guarantee you’ll make someone’s day by sharing it. Trade School Online is an exciting experiment created by the people behind Trade School Dudley, Trade School Wolverhampton, Bearwood Trade School and Trade School Digbeth to connect, celebrate and share what people in our communities can do. We started our Bearwood Trade School not long before l

Then you’d be a really great person to volunteer for the Sandwell Together project! And if you are socially isolating and miss a good natter, then get in touch to be linked to a telephone befriender. Run by Sandwell Advocacy, they link up people who are socially isolating with people who have volunteered to be telephone or Facetime befrienders. Here’s the info - be sure to get in touch if you can help, or if you’re socially isolating and you’d love a natter: It’s for people w

IMAGINE a partnership corridor…or golden thread… of community led spaces that runs right through the heart of Smethwick, reaching out to and run by their super-hyper-local* community. From the Brasshouse in North Smethwick to St Albans Community Centre . On to ChangeSpaces at Holy Trinity Church to the Dorothy Parkes Centre , via Thimblemill Library , to Bearwood Community Hub to SMBC-run Lightwoods House . All of these centres connecting their partnership work with nearby

Here’s a copy of our most recent newsletter: We thought it was about time that you heard from Bearwood Community Hub. Our project leader Sally Taylor has been concentrating on looking after her young children in the absence of school and nursery, but she has begun to reflect on what the current situation means for the community hub. Here's an update from her. Hi! The Bearwood spirit has been awesome during lockdown. There's the Covid-19 Mutual Aid group , groups of reside

Our project leader Sally Taylor has been concentrating on looking after her young children in the absence of school and nursery, but she has begun to reflect on what the current situation means for the community hub. We recently sent out this newsletter with some detail on ‘what now?’, and here we’re going to list a few ideas to have come out of community meetings, conversations with different groups, or observations about what's been happening in Bearwood since lockdown tha

For information on local support in Bearwood for Covid-19, whether you need support or want to give it, please check out our special page on this: Covid-19 Support Like everyone, we’re trying to work out day by day how to best manage the situation. I’m Sally Taylor and I lead on the development of Bearwood Community Hub (getting word out, involving people, doing the business plan and working out financial/funding investment to make it happen). Along with our Board, I’m workin

Bearwood Community Hub Trade School is going from strength to strength! Hosted once again by Why Not Café, this session was all about How to Declutter. In exchange for the Lorna giving her time to share a skill, she had asked for some barter items. And word is spreading about Bearwood Trade School. Bearwoodians were delighted to welcome new friends from Balsall Heath, Birmingham and Brierley Hill to the ‘wood. We love to share the good stuff. Once everyone had got their coff

Our day chatting to 150 people Bearwood Indoor Market. It was a cold February day, the first of the month. Quite sunny, but nevertheless a chilly one. Thank goodness we had our volunteer Town Crier George to generate a bit of interest! A group of about 8 volunteers (thank you everyone!) managed to chat to over 150 people that day and Alex Hughes from Drawnalism captured so many of the ideas on his beautiful graphics, take a look below. Now all we need to do is bring this and

Volunteer organiser Coral Musgrave tells us all about Bearwood Trade School. Bearwood Community Hub launched the first Trade School in Bearwood on Sunday 26 January 2020. This is, we hope, the first of many Trade School sessions to be offered locally. Trade school is based on a barter system, so while these classes are free, people coming to the session will be asked to bring something the teacher has asked for in exchange for sharing their skill. This could be seeds, a recip

We can’t wait to share the ‘after’ image!! Volunteer organiser Ellie Shaw has some news about Bearwood’s latest green space, and how you can help make it happen this Saturday. Hello Bearwood! A couple of months ago a post popped up from Bearwood Community Hub on the Bearwood Gardeners Facebook page talking about a possible space for a community garden in Bearwood. I blooming love gardening and can’t help but LOVE the idea of having a shared garden on our doorstep. Birmingham

Bearwood Community Hub project development manager Sally Taylor reflects on her conversations about how to include people who are usually excluded. One of the reasons behind wanting to pursue this idea of Bearwood Community Hub in an accessible place on Bearwood Road is to create a hive of activity and welcome for people who aren’t yet connected (there are lots of them, our research tells us) to all the wonderful things we have access to in Bearwood. To do that it’s really im

Sally Taylor visited a coworking space and community centre in Balsall Health looking for snippets of gold dust to bring back to help us develop the plans for Bearwood Community Hub together. There was much more than a few snippets - what an awesome building! When I arrived at the Old Print Works coworking space I felt like I’d walked into a welcoming home - so comfortable, bright, ‘lived in’ and stylish too. It was so different to the really high spec co-working spaces I’ve

Ideas flowed when about 45 people from across Bearwood came gave up two hours for the first #MakeItHappen meetings on 16th October to explore different ideas about why community space in the centre of our community is important. We started off designing a Tour of Bearwood to understand what people in the room value in terms of the assets we already have - people as well as places! Photos at the bottom of this post. The big picture to your right is our attempt to bring all the

Reflections on conversations at Bearwood Action for Refugees ’ monthly Community Lunch Last Saturday I was very excited to have been asked to share lunch at Bearwood’s monthly lunch for newly arrived families and local families. At this lunch, volunteers cook (and wash up!) so that families can rest, chat, play and get to know one another. After lunch there was a choice of more play and nattering or Baby Yoga or adult’s yoga . Over a good lunch and for a good time afterwards

A reflection from Sally Taylor The National Lottery Communities Fund brought a load of black country people together today for their ‘Reaching Black Country Communities’ event - a day where we heard from the Community Fund, shared with others what we do, connected, and got to choose different breakout groups where we could hear all about how other social impact organisations do what we do. All the sessions I chose to attend were related to community engagement - you can tell