What’s Happening
PR Support for Fulham Businesses
Since 2008 Clemence de Crecy has been running Clementine Com a luxury PR agency on the New King’s Road (52) specialising in Hospitality and Lifestyle PR. The agency offers traditional networking, social media, creative event planning and media training. Clients include the Cowdray Estate, Decanter World Wine Awards and Bamford London.
Clemence recently got in touch with Urban Village LDN about offering support to local Fulham businesses. “Like many others we have been impacted over the past few months but would love to find a way to work closely with local businesses”. Get in touch to hear how they can help, mention Urban Village LDN, let them know you’re based in Fulham for a 20% discount and free media training.
Police Cadets adapt during lockdown
Urban Village LDN spoke to PC Ronan McDermott who is the Volunteer Police Cadets coordinator in Hammersmith and Fulham. We’d heard from a local resident about how they’d manage to adapt and the wonderful work they’d carried out within the community despite lockdown.
“As with many youth organisations the Hammersmith & Fulham Police Cadets was postponed at the start of lockdown. This meant we had to think outside the box for the volunteering section of their Duke of Edinburgh awards which they normally do within the community. The cadets were told they could cover this section by completing home chores, cooking, cleaning, gardening, helping elderly neighbours etc. They posted their hard work pictures and videos on our WhatsApp group”.
Ronan continued to tell us about some of the volunteering the cadets undertook adding that there were so many examples, here are some of the highlights.
“We made a lovely Thank Our NHS & Key workers Video, with cadets in uniform and posted this online via our Twitter, Facebook and Nextdoor accounts. For VE Day, some baked cakes, arranged tea parties, made decorations etc. Cadet Lilly Fritsche-Mosen made VE Day party packs for her elderly neighbours and delivered them to their doors. Cadet Ciaran Fitzharris made diners for his neighbours who were vulnerable or self-isolating. He also purchased & delivered lots of fresh food and drinks to the Ambulance station on Seagrave Road with Dad Dave”.
“Cadets Ciaran Fitzharris, Olivia Maher & Josh Hallmark volunteered in the Clem Atlee Estate community hall with the ‘Smile Brigade’ Charity packing groceries and essentials for people self-isolating across the borough. They did this in their own time, whilst they still had school work to completle. We celebrated Stephen Lawrence Day, and Mental Health week by making pledges to help people in need. Even a simple phone call to someone who they knew was finding lockdown hard. They also have been taking part in my weekly online zoom sessions, where we discuss COVID 19 and volunteering amongst other things and hold our own Joe Wickes type fitness lesson”.
“I am incredibly proud of these young people, when many are simply playing video games, these guys are always trying to find ways to help the area they grew up in. My job is very easy when we have kids like these”
Anyone interested in finding out more about the Cadets, where and when sessions are held can email FH-VPCLeaders@met.police.uk
Ready Tech Go
This community-driven, not-for-profit organisation was created in the wake of the COVID 19 pandemic by a diverse, environmentally conscious group of friends. They are all Londoners whose backgrounds include coordinating international aid and cyber-security. In their words “we all have one thing in common: technology has propelled us through life”.
At the height of lockdown many of the founders volunteered by delivering hot meals to vulnerable people within the borough and witnessed first hand how rapidly the digital divide was accelerating and isolating people. By not being digitally connected, which Ready Tech Go quite rightly describe as being “an essential aspect of modern living”, they saw how this adversely affected so many in our community from the elderly who couldn’t see their loved ones to young children trying to do homework on parents smartphones. Ready Tech Go believe that “access to technology should be classified as a right rather than a privilege”.
Ready Tech’s first referral was Mr B who spent lockdown alone and was in desperate need of technology to connect him to the outside world. Thanks to a donor Ready Tech Go supplied him with a tablet and helped support him with his first steps into the online world. Now Mr B is connected to his family around the country is easily making video calls and seeing his loved ones faces for the first time in months.
If you have an old tablet please consider donating to Ready Tech Go, Even if you don’t think its fully functional they have dedicated tech experts who will investigate, wipe all data, sanitise the device and get it to a worthy recipient found through their connections with referral partners including Solidarity Sports and West London Welcome. At worst it will be recycled through proper channels rather than sent to landfill. If you’d be interested in joining Ready Tech Go’s senior advisory board fill in the contact form here https://www.readytechgo.org/our-team
Fulham Town Hall plans approved
Urban Village LDN wrote about the proposed plans for turning Fulham Town Hall into a boutique hotel in June last year after attending the public exhibition. Refresh your memory here https://bit.ly/fulhamtownhall
Now over a year later they’ve finally been approved and we’re all quite excited by the prospect of a boutique hotel in our midst. As many Fulhamites, who’ve lived in the area for a while will know, there have been many failed plans and let’s face it this is preferable to a Mama and Papas showroom which was muted at some point; glad that one didn’t come to fruition. Nobody who lives in the area can disagree that the building is in a bit of a sad way. Over the years it’s former glory has been fading even before the council closed the doors and sold it off. The town hall looks dilapidated and we can’t be the only ones fed up seeing it sat there empty and not in use so we say “yes, hurrah and about time” to this project finally getting the green light. We look forward to watching with interest when the building works and renovations begin. As we said in our first piece we will have a big smile on our faces when we walk past to see the clock on Harwood Road once again telling the correct time. We’ll be even happier when the doors re open and new life is breathed back into the building.