NGAG is pleased to announce that Newington Green has once again been awarded a Green Flag Award for the high level of care taken to look after the Green. One of the criteria for this award is that there should be community involvement in the care and running of the site, so we would like to thank all those volunteers who have helped NGAG to plant bulbs, trees and tree pits, look after the bird feeders, clean up rubbish, run events and generally keep and eye on Newington Green. The Green Flag Award is now being run by Keep Britain Tidy.

We have also been awarded the prestigious Green Heritage Award for the fifth year running. Accreditation for this award is sponsored by English Heritage and this year the Green Heritage Award has been given to just 52 sites in the whole of the UK.

The fact that the Newington Green Action Group has helped to promote the history of the Green, with our award-winning book 'The Village that Changed the World' and our seasonal postcards of the Green, has contributed towards the award being given to us again this year. As a point of interest, 'The Village that Changed the World' has been so popular, that we are having a second edition published, and it should be available in mid September.

For  more information about the Green Flag and Heritage Awards you can visit here:

http://www.keepbritaintidy.org/GreenFlag/GreenFlagAwardSites/London/Default.aspx?parkID=183

Newington Green Action Group once again ran our annual Jazz on the Green event, continuing the tradition of meeting and making music on the Green, which has continued in various forms for hundreds of years.

The weather was kind to us and it was sunny and warm, so the only umbrellas around were being used as sunshades. This may have contributed to our having a record number of people who came to picnic on the Green whilst they enjoyed listening and dancing to the live music provided by Brass Volcanoes the popular Jazz Group who joined us for the third year running.

The musicians opened the afternoon by processing around the Green, visiting the local cafes and acting like Pied Pipers, as they brought people onto the Green. Brass Volcanoes have even written a song for Jazz on the Green, which they first sang in 2008 when we had the Plastic Bag Free Newington Green campaign, with the life-sized whale made of willow withies on the Green. The crowd enjoyed joining in the song 'Don't throw away your plastic bags, or a whale might eat them'.....

During their last set, the musicians played and danced amongst the crowds on the Green and went right into the children's playground, giving them a very direct and fun experience of live music!

Stalls

There were queues at both That Place on the Green and at Trattoria Sapori's stall, both of which did sterling work providing  traditional English cream teas, Pimms and ice creams, plus Italian panini and pizzas for hungry members of the audience.

The RSPB ran a stall which where they gave out information about our native bird, wildlife and the RSPB House Sparrow Project, to link in with our WING project. The RSPB also had a number of toys and books available for children and adults. I understand they also gained some new members during the afternoon.

NGAG are keen to encourage cyclists, as another way of helping our environment and our thanks go to the brand new Police Cycle Task Force who volunteered to give out information and to security mark people's bicycles. The police told us that they managed to mark 55 bikes during the afternoon - they worked hard!

Raffle

NGAG would also like to give thanks the local traders who provided lots of great prizes for the raffle and Toni Sapori who helped organise it. You may read the list of prizes and the traders who kindly donated them, in the attachment. The tickets were drawn by Kate Groucutt, one of our local councillors and the money raised will be donated to the charity Action For Children.

NGAG gained some new members and is grateful to all those people who gave donations, which amounted to a fantastic £213, which will go towards the running of the afternoon. 

In 1782, a 25 year old woman from a dysfunctional family moved to Newington Green with her sister and a friend. She rented accommodation, set up a girls' school and attended the local Church.

Nothing unusual or newsworthy, you might think.

However, the young woman was Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-97), the minister at the Dissenting Church was Richard Price (1723-91) and their meeting would eventually change the course of world history. Richard Price was also a well respected philosopher and political thinker. His house at 54 Newington Green had become an important meeting place for radicals, intellectuals and reformers of the day, including Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, second US President John Adams and his wife Abigail, David Hume, Adam Smith, Joseph Priestley, Tom Paine and Wollstonecraft's future publisher, Joseph Johnson.

Wollstonecraft's move to Newington Green introduced her to this circle, radicalising her thinking and honing her sense of justice. After publishing books on girls' education and civil rights, she went on to write 'A Vindication of the Rights of Woman' (1792), which argued against women's relegation to a state of ignorance and dependence and demanded "JUSTICE for one half of the human race". The book would become a foundation in the history of women's rights and Mary Wollstonecraft is now regarded by many as the mother of feminism. She would also become the first female war correspondent and travel writer and was an early anti-slavery commentator - all while she was a single mother.

Amazingly, it seems that there is no memorial sculpture to Mary Wollstonecraft - anywhere.

Whilst there are portraits of Mary Wollstonecraft at the National Portrait Gallery and the Wollstonecraft Gate at Spitalfields Market near to where she was born, there is no sculpture of Wollstonecraft, as far as we are aware.  Newington Green Action Group has decided to rectify this situation and with local community support has initiated a campaign to erect a sculpture on Newington Green to recognise her achievements.

Want to Become Involved?

If you would like to become involved, be kept in touch with developments or contribute to the fundraising campaign, please send your contact details to NGAG here. 

In 2009, Newington Green was entered for a London In Bloom Neighbourhood Award and we received a Merit. This year, we are extending the area involved and a wider area around Newington Green is being entered for an Urban Communities Award, which is also part of the RHS London in Bloom awards scheme.

Over the years, we have gradually been creating links and running events with other groups and for this year's In Bloom entry we are linking the Newington Green area with the exciting projects taking place at the Mayville Gardening Club and King Henry's Walk Community Garden, so that the judges can see a range of gardening initiatives around the area. The judges will also see some of the local streets, such as Lidfield and Winston Roads that have so beautifully planted up the new street trees' pits and have transformed the look and feeling of community in their roads.

Newington Green Action Group volunteers have worked hard during the year adding new plants to the Green and caring for them We've also had fun planting up the tree pits around Newington Green. We chose to plant the pits in purple and green, to link in with the colours of the suffragette movement that followed in the footsteps of Mary Wollstonecraft, the influential author and early feminist who lived and worked here for a while. We have also included sustainable plants and ones that will support insects with pollen and nectar. Our thanks go LB Islington for all the help and support they have given us with this project.

You Can Help Too!

We need help watering the tree pits and clearing them of rubbish. Although many of the traders are watering planted tree pits, these need a lot of water whilst plants are getting established and we could do with help to give them more water.

You could also help by creating window boxes or hanging baskets, by tidying up your front garden, cutting hedges and clearing any litter from them. Everything will help the area look more cared for - and will feel nicer for us all to live in.

If you would like to get involved and can help us, do please contact us here.

Judging takes place on 8th July.

Adam Rock, who was a founder of Newington Green Action Group and an active participant in local regeneration for many years, died in April 2010.

His funeral will be on Friday 7th May at 2.30pm at the Unitarian Church and afterwards, there will be drinks in the Nobody Inn.

Adam had been in great pain through illness, for several years, and it is with sorrow that he died after long suffering. We extend our sympathy to his family and thanks for his life which stimulated the formation of our now thriving Action Group.

Please send any letters of support to his family via the Unitarian Church on Newington Green. His family have constructed a website to which people can contribute.

So many of the flowers on Newington Green get trampled on or picked by children, like these left to die on the stonework - and it really does spoil the look of the Green!

Hundreds of pounds have been spent by LB Islington and the Newington Green Action Group on new plants for Newington Green, in order to make the Green more attractive for all its users. NGAG planted a potentially beautiful purple wisteria to grow up over the kiosk building - but soon after planting, someone had pulled it down and snapped it in half. The flower buds died and we had to dig it up and take to a safe place - but the plant may not survive. This sort of thing  is very dis-spiriting, when we have spent hours of time and effort planting and caring for them, then to see so many plants trashed without thought.

Children love flowers and nature, which is great, but they can enjoy them in ways that don't ruin the plants and kill them. It's not just children - adults tear off branches for dogs to chew and this kills the young trees that have been planted. If you have a dog, please use dead branches for them to play with, not ones that are growing.

Perhaps your children could grow some flowers at home on the windowsill, or have a small patch of their own in the garden which they can enjoy caring for? Then maybe they will also be able to see insects such as harmless little hoverflies or butterflies visiting the flowers. Add a bowl of water and birds may come down to drink. Birds will even nest on balconies, if you give them the right conditions.

It's great watching some wildlife right outside your home and, as Mary Wollstonecraft put it -'Look what a fine morning it is. Insects, birds and animals, are all enjoying existence' (Original Stories from Real Life).

Poisonous Plants

Another important reason for children not to pick the flowers, is that quite a lot of plants are poisonous, or can cause allergic reactions - even some of those that look innocently pretty!

So please care for your children as well as the plants. Teach them to enjoy and care for flowers and plants, but not to pick, stamp on them - or to pull them up just for fun.

We need your help!

Help us to look after Newington Green, so that it can be a beautiful space for us all to enjoy.

April 2010

NGAG has once again produced some newsletters about recent community issues and activities that NGAG Committee Members and Friends have been involved with.

The latest newsletter, may be found in the attachment below.