Events coming up this week

Loads of stuff happening in and around Ladywell and Brockley over the next couple of weeks, including the guided walk in the cemeteries tomorrow, the public meeting on the Fuel Poverty Bill on Thursday, the opening night of Brockley Max Festival this Friday and various events at Ladywell's newest (and only?) art gallery: Tank Art Gallery. Read on for further details!

Tuesday 26th May:
Guided walk with Nick Bertrand in Brockley & Ladywell Cemeteries
Meet at the Ladywell Road gate at 6.50pm.

Nick Bertrand compiled an ecological survey and management plan of the two cemeteries in 1995. The Friends group is seeking to build on this for their own management plan and are pleased that Nick has agreed to lead this walk. He will talk about the flora, fauna and ecological management of the Cemeteries.

A donation from participants is requested, to go to the Creekside Trust, of a minimum of £3 for members, and £5 for non-members of FoBLC. The walk is expected to last for 2 hours.

As this is an “after hours” activity, the cemetery gate will be locked at 7pm, so latecomers can not be admitted. This replaces the scheduled May meeting for Friends of Brockley & Ladywell Cemeteries.

Thursday 28th May:
PUBLIC MEETING: How to End the National Scandal of Cold Homes
Date, time: Thursday 28th May 2009, 7pm to 9pm
Venue: St Andrew's United Reformed Church, corner of Brockley Road and Wickham Road, Lewisham, London SE4 2SA

Invited: Joan Ruddock MP - Labour Member of Parliament for Lewisham Deptford and Climate Change Minister
Chair: Ron Bailey - End Fuel Poverty Coalition
Speakers:
Mervyn Kohler - Age Concern and Help the Aged Special Advisor
Ruth Bond - National Federation of Women’s Institutes Chair of Public Affairs
Dave Timms - Friends of the Earth Senior Parliamentary Campaigner
Gemma Townsend - Conservative Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Lewisham Deptford
Cllr Chris Maines - Liberal Democrat Group Leader at Lewisham Council
Cllr Darren Johnson AM - Green Parliamentary Candidate for Lewisham Deptford

Please come to this meeting to show Joan Ruddock you want her to back the Fuel Poverty Bill!
This is a public meeting - it is free and no booking is required.

Background
If made law, the Fuel Poverty Bill, currently going through Parliament, would enact measures to end the scandal of cold homes, cut costs to the health service and generate tens of thousands of jobs. The Bill has strong cross party support including from former Labour Ministers. But not yet from local Lewisham Deptford MP, Joan Ruddock.

▪ In Lewisham alone nearly 3,000 older people have to choose between eating and heating.
▪ In Lewisham there will probably be 800 ‘excess winter deaths’ in the next decade.
▪ Fuel poverty costs the health service £1.9 billion every year: averaged out that’s nearly £9 million wasted in Lewisham.
▪ The public meeting is organised by the End Fuel Poverty Coalition (members’ logos are opposite).
▪ For more information on the Fuel Poverty Bill go to www.endfuelpoverty.org.uk or call 020 7359 8000.

Brockley Max Festival
Brockley Max Festival kicks off this Friday (29th May) with the now traditional opening night gig outside Brockley Barge on Coulgate Street. You can see the full programme of events on their website. The closing event will be on Hilly Fields on Sunday 7th June. Not to be missed!

Tank Gallery at the Ladywell Tavern
I've been a bit remiss in not plugging the fact that Ladywell now has an art gallery round the back of Ladywell Tavern, although Brockley Central did a write up a week or two back. They have a number of events coming up in the next couple of weeks:

29 May: A Stitch In Time & The One I Love 1600 onwards free
Tank Gallery presents the solo exhibition A Stitch In Time by South London based artist Aoife van Linden Tol. Working primarily with explosives Aoife van Linden Tol detonates small bombs to make imprints on paper, wood and metals. This collection of work uses the force and evidence of the explosions to explore perspectives of time. Aoife van Linden Tol invites you to bring a photograph of the one you love or someone you love on the 29th May. She will explode a tiny heart or tiny kisses onto the photograph using gun powder. These will be displayed in the gallery in the evening. They will be kept for a few days for cataloguing and then returned to you. All you need to do is bring a photo with you to Tank Gallery and fill in a form. You can bring the photo on the day but it is advised to bring the photo in before 4pm on the 29th if possible.

Wed 3rd June: Film Box – Film Screenings 1900 free

'Bigfoot of Suburbia' (2006). Written and Directed by Fred Rowson. Starring Richard Proctor

'King of Deptford Creek' (2009). Written and Directed by Fred Rowson. Starring: Simon Pearsall, Director of Photography: Jaime Feliu Torres

Tank Gallery presents two films by local Filmmaker Fred Rowson. We will first introduce a taster of Bigfoot of Suburbia whose main character, Peter Kingsley, is a jobless loner, lost in the heat of a South London summer. However, when a brief local news story catches his attention, his life his given a purpose: even if it costs him his reputation and his home, he knows that he must track down the mysterious beast that is hiding in his local park, Hilly Fields...

We will then screen a full preview of King of Deptford Creek, due to make the round on the festival circuit this summer. This is the story of a South London-based Private Investigator, Eliot, whose journey to find the missing Philip obsesses him to the point that he drops out of society. He becomes so caught up in the search that he too disappears - thanks in equal parts to a failing marriage and a missing diary. The story is set around a Thames tributary, The Ravensbourne, and its tidal reach, known as Deptford Creek, an eerie environment that slowly swallows Eliot's identity.

The audience are then invited to join us in an informal discussion with a small panel including Fred Rowson and Richard Proctor. The audience will get the chance to see a full screening of Bigfoot of Suburbia either after the discussion or on a later date.

5,6,7 June: Against The Wall (No. I) Live painting all day free

Against The Wall is a live painting performance, which will feature regularly in the Tank Gallery programme. Artists will be invited to create work directly onto the walls of the gallery space over the period of a few days where the public will be allowed to enter the gallery space and watch the work being created. Once complete the work will remain on show for the exhibition period. The wall will then be documented and white washed ready for the next show.

For the first of this series we have invited a local South London graffiti crew to transform the gallery during the last weekend of the Brockley Max festival. The public are welcome to watch on the 5th 6th ad 7th of June. This group of four artists who prefer not to be named have been prolific in the South East of London for the past 10 years. Their works can be seen in various locations around the city. They have created works in the urban environment independently and in collaboration with the council as well as being involved in running youth orientated projects. Feel free to come and watch them in action where they will be happy to answer any questions you might have. We hope to run a youth project in Tank Gallery with this group later in the year. Any artist can apply to take part in future Against The Wall exhibitions. Simply contact us or pop into the gallery for an application form and show us what you want to do. tankgallery@gmail.com

Monday 1st June: Lewisham Green Drinks
7pm onwards, Mr Lawrence Wine Bar, Brockley Road, 7pm onwards. For anyone with an interest in green issues (not party political, lower case green).