Yesterday I attended TEDxBrum, and I was impressed, entertained, inspired and moved by the experience. It’s amazing what can be achieved by a dedicated, volunteer team. One of the joys of these kind of events is that, as well as hearing the story each speaker is telling, one can relate their observations, ideas and convictions […]
Category: Reports
In readiness for our community conversations project getting underway, I am commissioning a logo for the centre from our old friends Carousel Digital and in keeping with our approach of openness and transparency, I’m going to make public the process of commissioning, drafting and selection on this blog. The logo is for The Kings Heath Centre for Space Exploration The ‘Centre for […]
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Playing out in Birmingham
The Kings Heath Centre for Space Exploration is coordinating efforts to organise one or more ‘Playing Out‘ events for National Play Day, which is Wednesday 7 August 2013. “Playing Out” is after-school street play led by neighbours for neighbours and only publicised within the immediate streets. Residents close their road to traffic for a couple of hours, […]
The Winter Equinox. The Roman Saturnalia. The birth of Jesus. Some time off work. What ever it is that you are celebrating this yule season, it is highly likely that during the holiday you will have some time on your hands. I know it’s hard to believe when all around you, people struggle to “get […]
I’d like to be able to urge you to watch this, but I can’t. If you watch it, you’ll understand why. What I can do is let you know that I found it very inspiring.
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A message to Strix
John Lewis you will have heard of, Strix probably not. Strix make the controls and components that go inside electrical goods from many different brands. They made the controls inside my three-year-guarantee, John Lewis kettle. The controls failed after three years and five months. Both John Lewis and Strix have been utterly professional and customer-caring in their responses to my […]
Our kettle stopped working a few days ago. And the socket behind the dishwasher that occasionally switches itself off half-way through the wash did just that. In other news, as a (newly joined) member of Kings Heath Transition Initiative I attended a Green Deal ‘go early’ training session for community recruiters. The green deal is […]
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Mission Statement
I’ve just updated the tag-line for this site to: ‘Living space, working space, public space, private space. Can the spaces where we live, become places of well-being?’. This is my latest attempt to pin down the mission focus of The Centre. I thought that it might be worth tracking how this mission statement has developed […]
Those of us who live in small areas of dense population with diverse inhabitants, we imagine, perhaps even congratulate ourselves, that our lifestyle is cosmopolitan. Thanks to national and global mobility, people of different ethnicity, nationality, language and faith live side by side in a huge, life-enriching melting pot. But is it melting? Surrounded by […]
I’d like to put forward a theory. Our beloved corporations, which exist to feed themselves, which are fiercely self-protective, which despite being abstract entities, can effectively steamroller over the feelings and rights and of individuals and indeed, of whole communities, which are a force composed of human will, but which do not have a pro-human agenda, are […]