Light Up Your Life! Celebrate 2015

celfest

To celebrate International Year of Light, we have six themes to the Festival

Performance/Information stalls/marquees/displays…

  • The light fantastic: dance, performance, music, movement, exercise, visual light show
  • the light touch: technology, computers, photography, healing and therapy, health and well-being
  • I see the light: celebrating diversity: representation from all of the faith groups and cultures in our diverse community, mindfulness, meditation and positivity
  • light for the future: looking at sustainability and sustainable resources, raising awareness of environmental issues, solar power
  • light and flight: to infinity and beyond, the night sky, the moon, space travel and technology, raising aspirations in employment in the field of STEM technology, space exploration, sustainable travel
  • Light Up Your Life: the ultimate theme of the Festival: participation, engagement, reducing isolation, getting to know your neighbours,

The International Year of Light

IYL2015 is a global initiative adopted by the United Nations to raise awareness of how optical technologies promote sustainable development and provide solutions to worldwide challenges in energy, education, agriculture, communications and health.

The website contains some fascinating information, an events calendar including UK events…

And our Celebrate Festival!

(Bit ambitious but why not!)

http://www.light2015.org/Home/Event-Programme/2015/Other/UK-Celebrate-Community-Festival.html

We Stand Together

We Stand Together

To celebrate our difference,
Against hatred and intolerance,
To build a safer and stronger United Kingdom
We Stand Together encourages people to come together as one and celebrate their differences in order to build a safer and stronger United Kingdom.

The initiative has been launched following recent global events which have caused concern within communities across Greater Manchester.

Chief Constable Sir Peter Fahy said: “Greater Manchester has a long and proud tradition of celebrating differences and sets a positive example to the rest of the world, which we should be immensely proud of.

“Recent attacks in Paris and Denmark have inevitably caused tension and fear within our communities and it is more important than ever that we come together as one and send a strong unified message that any attempt to create disharmony or fear is futile.

“We all have a responsibility to encourage community cohesion and I am calling on people to stand together against hatred and intolerance and show their support for each other during this difficult time”.

Councillor Bernard Priest, Manchester City Council’s deputy leader, said: “Mancunians are rightly proud to live in a diverse and thriving city where people respect and tolerate each other, but there is no escaping the fact that incidents in other parts of the world can have an impact on community tensions here.

“Now, it is more important than ever for our communities to show the world that we are continuing to stand together, despite the troubling times we are living through, and demonstrate that hatred and intolerance have no place in our city.”

Police and Crime Commissioner Tony Lloyd said: “Here in Greater Manchester, as across the land, we have strong, cohesive communities where we celebrate our diversity. But we should never take for granted the fact we live in a safe, tolerant part of the world as there are always those who would seek to drive us apart. By standing together we send out a clear and strong message that we celebrate and cherish our inclusive society, as well as recognising that we have a shared responsibility to work to safeguard it.”

Community leaders will be urging members of the public to use social media to spread the message of standing together using the hashtag #WeStandTogether

To report an incident of hate crime, please contact Greater Manchester Police on 101 or 999 in an emergency. Alternatively, please report online to True Vision (www.report-it.org.uk) or use the True Vision app.


mcc 2gether1

23 March 2015
The Great Hall 
Manchester Town Hall
Event 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm
 (Doors open 1:30 pm)
This year Manchester Communities Together 2015 will showcase the diversity of local opportunities and inspire you with new ways to get involved in your local neighbourhood.

Whether you  are an active resident looking for information to help your group,  some one who wants to start a group and doesn’t know where to  start or a local person looking for ways to get involved locally, you  will find it here at the Manchester Communities Together Event 2015.

The event is supported by Clean City and there will be plenty of information on how you can get involved, apply for small grants, and find out what residents, neighbours and community groups across the City are doing with Clean City.

You can choose attend workshops to help get your project off the ground

  • Starting a new group – do you want set up a residents group but don’t know where to start, find out want to consider.
  • Different ways to get people involved  – learn from the experiences of established groups
  • Greening your Alley – turn an unloved space into an urban wonderland, with funding.   See what other groups have created and how they did it.

Come along, bring a friend and join in.

Attendance is limited so please reserve your place for this interesting event by

Thursday 19 March.
To register email community.engagement@manchester.gov.uk  with your name, telephone number, the details of friends coming with you, accessibility considerations and express your interest in one or more of our workshops.  Alternatively please contact us by telephone.

0161 274 6431

Celebrate Your Alleygates Booklet

A potted history of our project:
Celebrate Your Alleygates is a Big Lottery Fund project in Whalley Range, Manchester. It was one of the winners of the Big Family Idea: a competition held by National Family Week and the Big Lottery Fund as part of the launch of National Family Week in 2009.

Please use and share our resource!

cyaalleybookletfinal (1)

Broken planters link from booklet: Planters

Chorlton Good Neighbours (CGN)

Chorlton Good Neighbours  (CGN) is a neighbourhood care group working in Chorlton-cum-Hardy and parts of Whalley Range, Manchester

Started in 1967 by a group of local churches, community groups and other local people, we are now a well established charity offering social, practical and emotional support to mainly older people in our community.

  • Coffee mornings
  • Exercise classes
  • Lifts to and from appointments
  • Home visits
  • Help with odd jobs
  • Referal to other agencies
  • Provide general advice and useful local knowledge
  • Social events
  • Information events
  • History Group
  • Day trips
  • Gardening Club
  • Men social afternoon
  • Melodics singing group

Who are our users?

  • Local older people – mainly from Chorlton, Chorlton Park and the Whalley Range area..
  • Our users often have little or no local family support. The majority of our users are women; however, we are encouraging more older men to get involved through a project which specifically targets them.

Visit the website at: www.chorltongoodneighbours.org  

Manchester Interdisciplinary Collaboration for Research on Ageing (MICRA)

MICRA is a network promoting interdisciplinary and innovative research on all aspects of ageing. It is based at the University of Manchester, but works more widely in the Greater Manchester area and nationally. MICRA currently brings together around 1,000 academics, practitioners, policy makers and older people to enrich the research environment and to help bridge the gap between academic research and policy and practice.

MICRA aims to:

  • Bring together an interdisciplinary groups of researchers working on ageing from across the University of Manchester, enhancing our capacity to raise funding for and conduct research
  • Increase capability to translate research findings into practical applications (policy, clinical innovations, technology)
  • Act as a focus for research activity at postgraduate and undergraduate levels across Schools and Faculties, with the intention of developing the next generation of interdisciplinary researchers in the field of ageing

Read more and find out about upcoming events at:

http://www.ihs.manchester.ac.uk/MICRA/