by Admin | 26 Nov 2023 | activities, Crickleknitters, FRONT PAGE NEWS
The amazing knitting enthusiasts of our weekly Wednesday group, Crickleknitters, have submitted their annual report for this year. It has been an incredible year and they’ve turned out so many wonderful garments for a variety of good causes. Don’t take my word for it – read below what one of the group’s regulars, Amanda, has to say:
Crickleknitters have been very busy this year and loved every minute of it. We have knitted little cardigans and blankets for UCL Hospital. Purple hats for the neonatal ward, for World Prematurity Week, at St. Marys Hospital, and 50 Orange and white hats for the Maternity ward there. Cosmic at St. Mary’s crowd funded to buy the wool. Scarves and hats for the Seafarers Mission. Baby cardigans and hats for Coventry and Warwick Hospital. Hats for the premature babies at the Royal Free Hospital. Baby hats and cardigans for the Royal Brompton Hospital. Hats, scarves and mittens for Homeless Women at Glass Door. We have knitted out own Bunting and a Christmas Garland for the library as well as our own projects!
I’m sure you’ll agree the things they’ve made are gorgeous, and the causes very, very worthy.
They’re making an appeal for yarn and needles in order to allow new knitters to get started straight away when they join. Oh, and they’d love some new members too! If you have any lying around at home that you’d like to see put to good use, please drop it off at the library desk.
by Library Admin | 11 Aug 2022 | children, Cricklereaders Juniors, FRONT PAGE NEWS, reading
We are very excited to announce that Cricklereaders Juniors, our book group for children aged 7-11, starts in September this year.
Reading for pleasure is an important skill for children and has more impact on their life chances than that of their socio-economic background. We’re all about reading for pleasure at Cricklewood Library, and are happy to announce we’ll be encouraging even more young readers to come in, browse around, find a book to enjoy and treasure, and have fun talking about their reading adventures with our group of talented and enthusiastic volunteers.
The group will be run by local parents and grandparents, and will take place on Friday afternoons from 23 September 2022. Places are limited, so to secure yours, sign up here.
by Library Admin | 29 Nov 2021 | FRONT PAGE NEWS, library event
We missed it last year, and we expect you did too. So we’ll be back this year and singing lustily. We’ll sing outside, as group singing generates a lot of exhaled breath and potentially germs! Then inside for a mince pie and a glass of something cheering.
Expect the usual mulled wine and mince pies. The perfect start to your Christmas season.
Download the songsheet we’ll be using to print at home or view on your mobile device – saves sharing!
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by Admin | 3 Jun 2016 | books, local, reading |
I don’t know if anyone else has experienced this lately, but it seems like everywhere I turn, I bump into another book group. I’m a member of one myself, and have been for several years. I’m not quite sure how it started, but it was certainly on the go before I joined, when I was invited in by one of the Anson Mums, and I enthusiastically agreed. We’ve been meeting on a more or less monthly basis, since I joined, for about 5 years, and we’ve read a huge number of books together, ranging from a non-fiction travel book by Sara Wheeler, through classics like Mapp and Lucia, and taking in some excellent books in translation that, frankly, I would never have tried had they not been suggested by another member of the group.
The first recorded reading groups were among women working in factories in the nineteenth century. The current movement gained momentum in the 1980s, becoming mainstream with the launch of Oprah’s Book Group and making it onto UK TV courtesy of Richard and Judy in 2004. And now, according to research undertaken a few years ago, there are tens of thousands of groups meeting regularly in the UK reading everything from literary classics to technical manuals! Celebrity recommendations can be life-changing for authors – the Richard and Judy/Oprah effect was a huge factor in propelling sales of 2012’s Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn into the 8m copy-plus bracket. (Tip – you don’t have to be female to be in a book group – blokes can join/start one too!).
It’s common for libraries nowadays to run book groups, and we hope that Cricklewood Library, when it opens, will join those ranks. In the meantime, if you’d like to get a book group going and all you need are like-minded readers, we can help you find them. Drop us a line on our info@cricklewoodlibrary.org.uk address and we’ll link you up with others who’re keen to get reading socially as well. It can be a lot of fun – sometimes we joke that our group is more about the wine and snacks than the literary chat, but you can run yours in a more (or less!) highbrow way if you want.
There are even children’s book groups nowadays, and we’ll be back with another post shortly on this phenomenon and other tips on getting your kids enthused about reading.
For suggestions on choosing your first book, why not head over to Love Reading or Good Reads for some inspiration? I’ve shared our reading list on Good Reads in the footer of this message so you can see what’s in our cupboards, so to speak.
Good luck and happy reading!
