by Admin | 18 Mar 2021 | events, FRONT PAGE NEWS
Would you or a friend or family member like some help with using Zoom?
Zoom is a video conferencing platform which can be used for:
keeping in contact with friends and family
joining in with meetings
attending religious services
Our trained volunteers from Cricklewood Library can help you to install Zoom and will demonstrate how to set up and join meetings. They will talk you through step by step until you feel confident.
You will need Internet connection and a PC, laptop, tablet or smartphone.
Interested? Please contact Annie on annie@cricklewoodlibrary.org.uk
by Admin | 23 Feb 2021 | FRONT PAGE NEWS, latest, volunteering
We’re starting an exciting new project in March. We’ll be training up to 10 volunteers to teach local residents how to access Zoom. The training will cover
- Overview of the Zoom interface (as a refresher and to make sure everyone is on the same page)
- Consideration for facilitation, safeguarding guidelines
- Creating invites
- Some of the common issues for helping other access Zoom.
Once trained, the volunteers will contact local people who would like to start using Zoom, to keep in touch with friends and family, or to enjoy our up-coming online programme of events. If you know of someone who could benefit from this training, get in touch! The training will help beneficiaries to overcome concerns and potential barriers faced, develop online skills, build confidence, become more independent, and do useful things like access online applications and services.
by Admin | 19 Feb 2021 | FRONT PAGE NEWS, latest
The Brent Solidarity fund provides assistance to Brent residents who are struggling financially. They aim to provide funds for up to £50 (maximum of once per month, per applicant).
“This fund can be used for anything: we are not there to judge you and there is no obligation to pay back the money. The fund is run with respect and trust, in accordance with principles of mutual aid: “from each according to their ability, to each according to their need”.
Call or e-mail your nearest Mutual Aid group out of the ones listed below to access the Solidarity Fund. Someone from the group will discuss your circumstances with you, and they may suggest alternatives to using the fund if there are other options available.
Brondesbury Park covidaid.brondesburypark@gmail.com 0208 050 3929
Dudden Hill duddenhillmutualaid@gmail.com 07588 541 399
Harlesden harlesdenmutualaid@gmail.com 07446 557 715
Kensal Green kensalgreenaid@gmail.com 0208 638 8291
Kilburn kilburnaid@gmail.com 020 3488 4916
Mapesbury MapesburyMutualAid@gmail.com 020 8914 7950
Northwick Park NorthwickPark.MutualAid@gmail.com 020 8050 1768
Queens Park qpmutualaid@gmail.com 0208 050 3875
Sudbury sudburymutualaid@gmail.com 07770 678 714
Welsh Harp welshharpcovid19@gmail.com 0330 043 1787
Wembley Central wembleycentralmutualaid@gmail.com 020 8050 1617
Willesden Green willygmutualaid@gmail.com 07593 426 959
If you need funds in larger amounts for specific things, the Turn2Us grant finder is a good place to look for further resources: https://grants-search.turn2us.org.uk
by Admin | 5 Feb 2021 | Cricklereaders News
So exciting! The ten review copies of Hope Nicely’s Lessons for Life have arrived from The Reading Agency!
I thought it would be nice to kick off the book group with a book you might not normally read, and it’s a bonus that it’s free! The publisher asks for reviews once we’ve read it. More details on that shortly.
In the meantime, if you haven’t claimed your free copy yet, drop me a line and I’ll arrange to get it to you. Just a reminder that the information session on the book group will be this Sunday afternoon. See my earlier post for details.
by Admin | 3 Feb 2021 | Cricklereaders News, events
If you’d like to find out more about the Cricklereaders book group and join the first Zoom meeting, do get in touch. It will be some time this coming weekend (either Saturday 13th or Sunday 14th – we’re still working out which day is best for most people.
At this meeting the group members will have the chance to meet one another and set out some groundrules for how the group will work. Once that’s done, the reading can commence!
As an added bonus, I have a free copy of Hope Nicely’s Lesson’s for Life to give you, to kick start your Cricklereaders reading journey!
For a link to the Zoom meeting, please email me!
by Admin | 31 Jan 2021 | latest |
We’re on for the talent show of 2021! Eight talented performers of all ages have signed up to take part in our mega fundraising Talent Show, scheduled for 21 February. It’s an eclectic mix of musical instrumentalists, singers, sketches, monologues and dancers, from the young, to the young-at-heart.
If you missed the sign up date, don’t worry, you can still be a part of it – in the audience. We’re looking for donations (an amount of your choice) via our KindLink platform. Donors will be sent a Zoom link shortly before the performance starts so they can take part.
We’d love it if you could share the event with friends and family. Use the button below to download a shareable flyer.
by Admin | 28 Jan 2021 | latest, reading
Fancy joining a book group, but not sure how to go about it? It’s difficult during the pandemic, to be sure. Well, look no further. We’ve done the leg work for you by starting one of our own at the library. In an ideal world, we’d be holding group meetings at the library, obviously, but during lockdown, that’s not possible. So, we’re inviting interested parties to sign up to an online book group for now, with the idea that we’ll transition to in-person meetings as soon as the pandemic allows.
We have four potentially interested readers already – why not think about joining them? There are no hard and fast rules about anything at the moment – when and how often you meet, how many members the group will have, how you will choose your reading materials – all that is yet to be decided by you, dear readers.
While borrowing books is difficult due to the pandemic, we’ve negotiated a discount for bulk purchases from local bookshops, so sourcing books once chosen should be a cinch.
For more information on how it could work, email cricklereaders@cricklewoodlibrary.org.uk.
by Admin | 17 Jan 2021 | events, latest, local
Councillors Lia Colacicco, Tariq Dar and Ahmad Shahzad are offering a public meeting to gather residents’ views on the recently instigated Low Traffic Neighbourhood Scheme. Keep an eye on social media tomorrow for details of how to join the meeting, scheduled for Monday 1 February.
by Admin | 9 Jan 2021 | latest
Something to look forward to. It’s what we all need right now, isn’t it?
Can you sing? Play an instrument? Recite a poem or a monologue? Juggle? Tell a (clean) joke? Perform a puppet show? We’re looking for talented people of all kinds to take part in an online talent show to take place at the end of January/early February.
We’d love you to be part of it, help us raise some cheer (and hopefully some funds) for the library and give the community something to look forward to through the dark days of January and beyond.
The Event
- Will take place on Zoom, early evening, from the end of January/early February, depending on everyone’s availability
- Each act will have 5 minutes to deliver their “party-piece”
- Each performer will need to have access to an internet-enabled device with a camera/microphone and be able to install Zoom on it (we can give some remote support on that if required). Mobile phones are fine, though a desktop/laptop gives a better Zooming experience
- Performers will need a quiet space to perform in, with a neutral backdrop – no dogs/kids/noisy flatmates barging through while you’re performing please!
- This is a family friendly event, so please ensure your material, surroundings and demeanour are appropriate!
- The audience will make a donation of their choosing to attend
- The audience will not be visible – only performers will appear on screen
- The library will provide a moderator to introduce acts and start/finish the evening
If you think you’d like to take part, please send a short (no more than 90 sec) sample video to Federica on events@cricklewoodlibrary.org.uk as soon as possible. She’ll be in touch when we’ve reviewed all contributions. Please be sure to indicate your availability when you get in touch with her.
If you’re too shy to perform, you can still take part – in the audience – and we’ll be posting more info about that in due course. In the meantime, follow us on social media for updates, and get practising!
DOWNLOAD AN EMAILABLE FLYER HERE TO SEND TO FAMILY AND FRIENDS
by Admin | 8 Jan 2021 | building works
The last post on here (before the latest lockdown) was about painting preparations. Well, painting work is well underway now, and in fact almost finished. The dust sheets are still up, but if you peer in you can just about make out what’s going on. Joe, Gerry and Alan, with help from other volunteers, have been beavering away in two-hour shifts, broken up by two-hour intervals. The intervals allow for airing the space out between volunteers. Because they’ve been working alone, it’s been a lonely task, but at least they’ve not spent their time chatting, eh? Gotta look on the bright side. Huge thanks to all of them.
Here’s what one volunteer (Joe Keating, pictured), said about why he volunteered.
“I volunteered for painting to support the important library project. It feels good to play a small part in this long-term voluntary effort. Those involved in the planning, fundraising and monitoring of the building process have given enormous amounts of time, work, expertise and persistence over several years. They deserve every assistance in completing the library for our community.”
Thanks also go to the generous donation of quality paint obtained for us by supporter Ellen Alsbrooks. This is truly a community effort and the library is very much a joint effort. It will be lovely to see all contributors in the library when we finally open later this year.
As well as the painting work, Alan is also now working on a solution to affix all of the shelves to the walls, and to build our movable shelving. Once this is completed, we’ll be able to restart book cataloguing, as far as Covid regulations permit. Once the stock is catalogued, it will be sorted and shelved. We’ll be making calls to the book stock team in due course for volunteers for these tasks.
Meanwhile, the background preparations are also ongoing. There are volunteer handbooks and policies to write, instruction manuals and training programmes to finalise, an intranet to be built, and many, many more tasks. So far this year we’ve clocked up an impressive 113 hours of volunteering time between us.
