Tag: Third Sector

Not just a pub landlord: A new podcast from the Grassroots Channel

Chris Birdsell and Bob Flack
Chris Birdsell and Bob Flack

Chris Birdsell isn’t your average pub landlord. Along with running the Varsity pub in Harborne, Chris is chairman of the local “pub watch” which alerts police to incidents on the High Street, he’s on the committee for the Harborne Traders Association, Harborne Village Centre Partnership and on the committee for Harborne Carnival. He’ll know who to put you in touch with, and regularly opens up the pub for community events.

Harborne Village Centre Manager, Bob Flack, nominated Chris in the active citizen category for the Birmingham Local Hearts award, because he recognised the innovation he has for local projects and the ability to drive projects to their end. Chris recently started a local artists evening – allowing those in the community to showcase their work. He said he always has people coming into the pub asking for help, and often he will find ways to help the people help themselves – opening the pub in the evening for them to hold fundraising events and meetings, and putting them in touch with the right people.

Chris has been described as the eyes and ears of the community, and said his motivation has to be the people. Here’s his story.

Making Britain a better place: a new podcast from the Grassroots Channel

Noorin Akhtar
Noorin Ahktar

Noorin Ahktar wants to change Britain. She goes out interviewing the people at the top – leaders of the council, councillors, public service providers and holds them to account in a way accessible to her community. Her aim is to make sure some communities know about the changes being made in public services – she promotes and raises awareness in ethnic communities – she now has a rogramme called ‘Community Time’. She has set up a blog, and uses radio and tv channels to make the short programmes in English, Urdu, Punjabi, and a number of different languages.

Noorin thinks some communities are wrongly perceived as ‘hard to reach’ – she challenges this point of view with her truly innovative and brilliant work. Her inspiration is the fact if people of aware of what is going on around them, they will have the knowledge to be able to do things.

Manjit Singh nominated Noorin for the active citizen award, one of the shortlist categories for Birmingham’s Local Hearts Awards.

Erma Lewis, recycling wheelchairs – a new programme on the Grassroots Channel.

Erma Lewis
Erma Lewis

Six years ago Erma Lewis started the ‘Wheelchair recycling, we can do’ project which refurbishes old and disused wheelchairs for people on NHS waiting lists or for family events and one-offs. This project sprang out of an appeal she ran following storm damage on her one time home island of Jamaica.

As a former nurse, Erma had seen the problem of people being unable to leave hospital for want of a wheelchair.  She began to think that if she was able to find and ship old wheelchairs to the Caribbean then perhaps she could also provide them locally.  Now the idea is a registered charity and a team of volunteers repair wheelchairs at a workshop in Harborne.

This podcast was recorded just before the Local Hearts Awards in Birmingham in October 2009 – where she was shortlisted in the category of female active Citizen.

Communities through the ages: A new podcast from the Grassroots Channel

Barry Toon and Jan Quigley
Jan Quigley and Barry Toon

Starting community work in the 1960s, Barry Toon has had the chance to see how community work and attitudes towards it has changed through the decades. A tireless worker for the Bournbrook Community Safety Project, as well as the TARA neighbourhood forum, Barry Toon feels like a veteran in community work – and now his years has been acknowledged by being shortlisted for the Lifetime Achievement award, for Birmingham’s Local Hearts Awards, nominated by Jan Quigley.

Barry’s work has revolved around making sure we prepared for an emergency – as part of the Birmingham Resilience Team he has helped to make sure people know what to do in case of man-made and natural disasters. Barry thinks in all decades people will campaign for change – but things aren’t always how they used to be. Here’s his story.