Wednesday 25 June 2003

Our Open Day this year is on sunny Sunday July 6th from 11.00am to 8.00pm there will be stalls, displays and refreshments all day. Hope you can come along. For more info phone Lisa Hook or Kirsty Peterkin on 020 7275 7557 11:32:10 AM

The Education Department is reducing the fat content in the 800,000 meals it serves daily and banning various snacks from school vending machines. [New York Times: Education] 11:00:26 AM

There is chaos in the London borough of Hackney as one school is forced to close and another is forced to take extra pupils. Melanie McFadyean reports 17th June 2003 [The Guardian ] via [Hackney IWCA] 10:37:56 AM

Hackney IWCA has discovered that the destruction of the Victorian former school in Dawson St E2, next to the Hackney Rd Bingo Hall, is nearly complete. Local residents received a letter from Hackney's Planning Department on Saturday 24 May 2003 informing them that the plans for a 5-storey block of flats were due to be considered at the Planning Committee meeting on Tuesday 27 May. With the Bank Holiday in between this gave residents just one working day's notice of the meeting, but the letter announced that the Planning Department was to recommend approval of the flats in any case. 16th June 2003 [from the Hackney IWCA website] 10:35:04 AM

HACKNEY ENVIRONMENT FORUM INVITE YOU TO A PUBLIC MEETING   The meeting will take place on Thursday July 24th 2003, 7.30 to 9.30 at Round Chapel, Lower Clapton Road, London E5 0PU. A number of speakers have been invited to discuss these issues and to answer questions from the audience. People who would like to put questions to the panel are asked to provide these in writing before the start of the meeting. The decision of the Government to back a London bid for 2012 Olympics raises a number of issues for people living in and around Hackney and Lower Lea Valley. Some of these are: Where will facilities be built. Loss of common land, public open space and areas of importance for nature conservation. Regeneration and employment potential of Olympics and Olympics Bid compared with International Station and proposed development on Stratford Rail Lands. Long term transport benefits to Hackney and Lee Valley. Ownership, use and maintenance of facilities after the Olympics. Sustainability: bidding for, building and running a green Olympics. Consultation with local communities. 10:29:46 AM

Historic Clapton: Buildings at Risk Thursday 26 June, 7.30pm Speakers will discuss historic buildings in the Clapton area, buildings at risk and preservation projects (e.g the Clapton Portico, the Round Chapel). Organised with the Hackney Society. With Maeve Melvin on Buildings at Risk (Buildings at Risk Officer, London Borough of Hackney); Ann Robey on The Round Chapel (Director of Hackney Historic Buildings Trust); Gary Butler on Pond House (Butler and Hegarty Architects); Angela Brady on The Clapton Portico, (Brady and Mallalieu Architects). Organised by Clapton Library Users Group (David Vail): 20 8442 4324 davidvail@blueyonder.co.uk 10:24:37 AM

The BBC News has switched on what may be the most sophisticated collection of customizable RSS feeds offered by any mainstream news organization. Matt "Helped design BBC News" Jones posts the elated in-company memo on it: "Yesterday afternoon [we] pulled the big red lever to make the CPS start publishing RSS versions of all the NewsOnline indexes on the website. Examples: Front Page http://news.bbc.co.uk/rss/newsonline_uk_edition/ front_page/rss091.xml Link [Boing Boing] 9:21:43 AM

Grabbing an hour's sleep during the day may be as beneficial for learning as a whole night in bed, according to scientists. [BBC News | Sci/Tech | UK Edition] 8:34:55 AM