Rachel writes…

There is a busy weekend of community activities coming up, so I thought I’d blog as a quick reminder for anyone who has missed the publicity.

The first is a Forest Gate event to celebrate 50 years of Newham.
Saturday 5 September 12 noon – 4.00pm Magpie Close, Forest Lane Park, Forest Gate, E7 9DF
A party in the park with a 60s theme, this promises plenty of fun with entertainment including:

• 1960’s music and dance classes, cake decorating, embroidery workshop with  the Sewing Bees group
• Come along dressed in your 1960’s clothes, with prizes for best fancy dress.
• Bring a packed lunch and your favourite teddy to join our teddy bears picnic.
• Have a go at skipping,  hula hooping and other traditional 1960’s games.
• Bring along a white t-shirt to transform at our tie dye stall.
• Horticulture workshops provided by the Forest Gate Community Gardening Group, including soil testing and food preserving.
• Enter the great Forest Gate cake off…… show us your baking skills.
• Donate a picture for our Forest Gate memories scrapbook.

You can download the flyer in PDF format here: 03735_CN_ForestGate_St_Party_A5_V2

The second is the much anticipated Forest Gate jumble trail, on Sunday the 6th, from 11am – 4pm.

All the details of the jumble trail are on the website here, or you can find them on twitter, or facebook to stay up to date.

I first heard about a jumble trail on twitter, and I confess I was slightly transfixed by the brilliance of the idea: a fabulous combination of community spirit, decluttering, secondhand shopping, and general fun. In essence it’s like a big jumble sale, but taking place in participants’ front gardens. Like an enormous carboot sale, full of your neighbours, with a side helping of home made cake. You can see where all the stalls are on the weblink above, and can follow the ‘trail’ by going to as many or as few roads as you want to.

This one has been organised by the amazing Elaine Odlin, and is now up to around 90 stalls. I will have a stall myself, and am very much looking forward to setting up, decking the front of the house with bunting, clearing out our house a bit, and enjoying the atmosphere.

So it’s all go in Forest Gate. A party on Saturday, and a Jumble Trail on Sunday. I hope to see you there!