Thursday, March 17, 2011
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Friday, March 4, 2011
Monday, February 28, 2011
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Market Club 20/02/2011
Lake of Stars are pleased to announce that our first Market Club event last Sunday was a huge success.
Many market stalls turned up to sell everything from clothing to CD’s to custom-made bowls. Fenchurch, Fabric and Frockney Rebel all set up stalls, and those were only the ones that begin with ‘F’.
The event officially got underway as our compere Ray took to the stage to introduce Mikel and George. At only 15 and 14 respectively, they were recommended by the English Table Tennis Association to give a table tennis demo and show the attendees how it’s done.
We managed to speak to the boys after their losing to their opponents, albeit with mini-bats, to get the lowdown on how they got involved with table tennis. They’ve only been playing for a couple of years and were pretty inexperienced in playing with tiny bats.
Our first live act of the day was Sam Sallon who gave the audience a helping of his plaintive acoustic sound and in the end was encouraged to play an encore by the enthusiastic crowd. We spoke to Sam afterwards and he even performed a song for us, making it the very first Market Club Session track:
After some further table tennis action, Scubaroots stepped up to play their laid back reggae on a Sunday afternoon.
Their music perfectly suited the atmosphere but we were lucky enough to get an interview with them later and they told us that they have been known to play a lot heavier material and their album Babylon Pharmacy even contains some Drum ‘n’ Bass. Check out our interview with them below:
The final stage of the day was to play the ‘Round-the-Table’ game umpired by the Young Offender’s Institute clubnight. The rules are simple. Each participant gets a bat and two wristbands. When running around the table every time they lose a point, they lose a wristband until only one player remains. The game continued this way for the rest of the night whilst the DJ’s played on.
By the end of the day, many of the stalls had made a great profit from Market Club and we spoke to some of them to see how their day had gone:
If you missed out on the event, worry not, Market Club will return next month on March 20th. Click here for the event:
Market Club 20/02/2011
Lake of Stars are pleased to announce that our first Market Club event last Sunday was a huge success.
Many market stalls turned up to sell everything from clothing to CD’s to custom-made bowls. Fenchurch, Fabric and Frockney Rebel all set up stalls, and those were only the ones that begin with ‘F’.
The event officially got underway as our compere Ray took to the stage to introduce Mikel and George. At only 15 and 14 respectively, they were recommended by the English Table Tennis Association to give a table tennis demo and show the attendees how it’s done.
We managed to speak to the boys after their losing to their opponents, albeit with mini-bats, to get the lowdown on how they got involved with table tennis. They’ve only been playing for a couple of years and were pretty inexperienced in playing with tiny bats.
Our first live act of the day was Sam Sallon who gave the audience a helping of his plaintive acoustic sound and in the end was encouraged to play an encore by the enthusiastic crowd. We spoke to Sam afterwards and he even performed a song for us, making it the very first Market Club Session track:
After some further table tennis action, Scubaroots stepped up to play their laid back reggae on a Sunday afternoon.
Their music perfectly suited the atmosphere but we were lucky enough to get an interview with them later and they told us that they have been known to play a lot heavier material and their album Babylon Pharmacy even contains some Drum ‘n’ Bass. Check out our interview with them below:
The final stage of the day was to play the ‘Round-the-Table’ game umpired by the Young Offender’s Institute clubnight. The rules are simple. Each participant gets a bat and two wristbands. When running around the table every time they lose a point, they lose a wristband until only one player remains. The game continued this way for the rest of the night whilst the DJ’s played on.
By the end of the day, many of the stalls had made a great profit from Market Club and we spoke to some of them to see how their day had gone:
If you missed out on the event, worry not, Market Club will return next month on March 20th. Click here for the event:
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Angaza Afrika - African Art Now
“Africa is as much a global phenomenon as a continent.” Chris Spring
 |
| Untitled - Mohamed Omer Bushara - 2008 |
Find out more abour Chris Spring
'Author Chris Spring, curator of the African galleries at the British Museum, has selected 60 thoughtful and creative contemporary artists working now not only in Africa, but also Europe and North and South America, including the Caribbean. Their work challenges our preconceived notions of Africa and its art on many levels'.
Check the October Gallery for information and images from their exhibition
Angaza Afrika: African Art Now by Chris Spring, published by Laurence King (paperback, 350 colour illustrations, 336 pages ISBN 13: 978-1-85669-548-0).
Angaza Afrika - African Art Now
“Africa is as much a global phenomenon as a continent.” Chris Spring
|
| Untitled - Mohamed Omer Bushara - 2008 |
Find out more abour Chris Spring
'Author Chris Spring, curator of the African galleries at the British Museum, has selected 60 thoughtful and creative contemporary artists working now not only in Africa, but also Europe and North and South America, including the Caribbean. Their work challenges our preconceived notions of Africa and its art on many levels'.
Check the October Gallery for information and images from their exhibition
Angaza Afrika: African Art Now by Chris Spring, published by Laurence King (paperback, 350 colour illustrations, 336 pages ISBN 13: 978-1-85669-548-0).
Friday, February 18, 2011
Mary's Meals
A mug of porridge offers a simple solution
A little boy sits on a wooden bench at the front of the class, pencil in hand, brow furrowed in concentration, a plastic mug hanging on a piece of string around his neck.
Peter lives in Mangochi in Malawi, just a few miles from the site of last year's Lake of Stars festival.
He is one of the 500,000 children around the world who now receive a daily meal in their place of education from Mary's Meals, a charity which believes that school feeding can offer a simple solution to the problems of hunger and poverty.
A meal a day
Mary’s Meals’ aim is straight forward – to provide a daily meal in school for children who are growing up in poverty, and through this to encourage them to get an education.
In Malawi, that food is likuni phala, a maize-based porridge developed by nutritionists. The mug of porridge draws the children to the classroom each day, and the education they gain there offers them the best chance of escaping poverty in the future.
While funding for Mary's Meals comes mostly from the UK, its projects in Malawi are managed by members of the local community and staffed by Malawian volunteers. Because resources such as ingredients and fuel are supplied by Malawian businesses and small holders, the local economy also benefits.
The charity values support from organisations such as the Lake of Stars festival, which hosted a school feeding demonstration last year, and from British musicians with links to Malawi, including Colin MacIntyre and Annie Lennox - who both recently visited projects.
School kitchens
"The kitchen is the heart of a school, as Andrew Parker, a project worker, explains: “A typical kitchen smells strongly of porridge,” he says. “It is a lovely place to be, especially when you meet the volunteers.”
Mary’s Meals kitchens are equipped with utensils and fuel-efficient cooking stoves, as well as a plastic mug for each child. The programme is feeding about 14 per cent of the school-children in Malawi, a country where poverty is widespread.
It is doing what it can to help, but there are still many thousands of hungry children, and a long waiting list of schools who have asked for support.
Little Peter carries his porridge mug on a piece of string around his neck because he knows it will be filled every day – but he still wants to make absolutely sure he won’t miss out.
"When I was seven, I left school because there was no food in my village. I was hungry all the time, so I stopped coming because I had no energy to walk to school. I came back when Mary's Meals was introduced. It gives us energy to learn and walk home."
Sustainability
Once Mary's Meals starts operating at a school, it makes a commitment to provide meals for as long as they are needed, if funding allows. It works with governments to complement national school feeding policy and capacity and always has a strategy to withdraw in the long term, once the community or economy is in a position to be self-sufficient.
While Mary's Meals' view is a long term one, its aim is to create a generation of skilled and educated young people who will be in a position to break the cycle of poverty and build a bright, sustainable future for themselves and their communities.
When Mary's Meals sets up at a new school in Malawi it builds the kitchen, then holds a 'handover ceremony' at which the keys are presented to local community leaders.
Porridge
At Namiwawa school, the arrival of the truck carrying Mary’s Meals supplies is always a cause for excitement. When the children spot it they shout “Phala!” which means “Porridge!”
There are children across Malawi, and the world, who are every bit as hungry as Peter was before school feeding started. We hope that the Mary’s Meals delivery truck could be pulling into more of their schools soon too.
• Mary's Meals welcomes financial and in kind support. You can help by making a donation, fundraising, volunteering or donating second-hand school bags and writing equipment to our backpack project. Find out more at www.marysmeals.org or call 0800 6981212.
Watch friend of the festival and Mary's Meals ambassador Colin MacIntyre in this video about his recent trip.
Catch Colin live in London next week at The Wheelbarrow, Camden, London
http://www.facebook.com/colinmacintyremull#!/event.php?eid=159544200762302
http://www.facebook.com/colinmacintyremull#!/event.php?eid=159544200762302
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