The CAB will run talks of up to two hours in groups of ten people, or perhaps a series of sessions if you have a number of people interested. You can choose to receive advice on a range of topics including: keeping track of your money, understanding fuel bills and how to decide upon a suitable mobile phone package.

They are currently booking for talks in January, so if you would like more information please contact Carole Adams on ceo.lewishamcab@fsmail.net or call 07785 461101.

More information on recycling in Lewisham

http://www.lewisham.gov.uk/recycling
Estates Recycling Update
Twitter: @envirolewisham

Friends of Mayow Park, in partnership with the London Orchard Project will be planting a new community orchard in Sydenham on Saturday 28th January between 12 and 3pm and they are looking for volunteers on the day to dig and plant ten fruit trees and a fruiting hedgerow.

Volunteers are also key to the longer term success of the project and by becoming an orchard carer, training will be provided for you to look after the trees in their first two years of growth.

Finally, any individual or a groups can sponsor a tree by making a contribution of around £50. Sponsors can opt to have their names listed on the park’s notice board, by agreement with the Council and also appear on the Friends blog.

If you would like any more information on the event how to become a sponsor, please email friendsofmayowpark@ymail.com

If you’d like to become a guest editor and perhaps tell people about some hidden gems where you live, visit In My Area to find out more, or email a short biography and photo to web.communications@lewisham.gov.uk along with your five selections.

Jean has stuck to the idea of social cohesion and at any given time in the evenings or lazy days she is usually out tending the gardens, surrounded by a group of children digging, planting, weeding, and even eating. They grow seasonal fruit.

The idea of community food growing gardens is to build stronger communities, and comes about as part of Capital Growth, who want to have 2012 community food growing areas by the year 2012. It’s aim to teach about growing traditional foods.

It has been determined that gardening is very good for the mind. Also local to us, Sydenham Garden caters for people who are in need of peaceful therapy. What could be better than gardening to soothe the mind?

The green in the middle of the small flats on Hazel Grove Estate, on the Burghill Road side, was just a grass patch with not much happening, but after Lewisham Homes gave the green a facelift, it has been completely transformed; there are benches and tables, logs to clamber on, and a basket ball pitch for the children and young adults.

It is a nice area now, children playing out, mothers out watching and chatting, people walking their dogs, and everybody knows each other, in these times it is good to have somewhere nice to sit and chill.
The day I visited it was quiet, I sat at a bench listening to the birds, it was very peaceful.

The community growing garden is abundant, there are pak choi,courgettes, tomatoes, pumpkins, green beans and quite recently, strawberries. The residents are encouraged to help themselves to food and I’m pleased to say that people are respectful, there has been no vandalism. I believe that is because nearly everybody in that community helped build the garden and it would almost be destroying themselves to ruin it. There is still respect in the community.

Sometimes people complain all the fruit has gone, but that means the children are eating fresh fruit and enjoying it. Not all city children are indoors on computers and scared of life. A lot of children are out and happy growing and eating there own fruit.

If you are interested in starting your own community food growing garden, visit Capital Growth or call 020 7837 1228.

Well, when I say exciting, what I actually mean is pretty dull, until it comes to turning everything
on, so I haven’t bothered with any pictures of plugs going into sockets. Instead, we have the almost
finished article; behold the magnificence…

1: It does look a bit like a bird’s nest under there, but time was pressing and we wanted to know if it
would all work; this stuff is like Xmas lights, leave it in a box for a while and there’s no guarantee
that it will still be OK when you take it out.

2: Still a few tools and cables laying about, but it’s looking like a radio station now.

3: This is the brains of the outfit, a powerful piece of software that can access any one of the
thousands of tracks in our database, in seconds. We can also play CDs and, coming soon, good old
vinyl records.

4: And this is the sharp end of the studio, the mixing console, now with CD players, keyboard
control for the computer and a microphone, so we don’t have to shout.

Here’s the low down on the kit we use (unless you’re a techy geek, you’ll probably want to skim this
bit).

Mixer: Like tulips, windmills and mice that go clip clippity clop on the stairs, this D&R Airmix
hails from Holland and, despite being at least 20 years old, has served us well; we’ve actually got
two, but the other needs some work and will eventually be the basis of a training and production
studio.

Each slider controls a separate sound source; on the left is where the music comes in, including
three inputs from the computer and a fader for each of the CD players. On the right are controls for
four mics and incoming telephone calls, but don’t phone us yet, the line hasn’t been installed.

Playout System: Computerised audio playout is the standard in today’s radio industry and we’re no
exception. There are many systems available, but we’ve been using ZaraRadio since day one, first
as downloadable freeware, now upgraded to the paid for ‘Pro’ version.

At it’s most basic level, it’s just a glorified jukebox, giving almost instant access to any of the
tracks in our database, currently numbering around 3000 and growing; delve deeper and it’s an
extremely powerful tool, enabling (amongst other things) full shows to be loaded in advance, songs
to be ‘chained’ together and played continuously, or even full 24/7 automation, where it will either
dip into the database at random, or play pre selected playlists.

From a practical point of view, we don’t have to store big piles of CDs (although we still seem to

have collected quite a few) and presenters can prepare their shows at home, bring them in on a USB
stick and load them onto the system in seconds.

CD Players: A pair of Numark MP102 decks, featuring variable pitch control, infinitely adjustable
cueing and MP3 capability. They take up more space than the more commonplace dual decks, but
the big advantage is, if one breaks, you don’t have to send both to the mender.

Limiter: Mounted above the CDs is a Cloud CX335 Compressor/Limiter. Essentially, this little
gizmo equalises the level of each sound source, so that it all arrives at your ears at (more or less) the
same volume. Unfortunately, it’s not foolproof, so if you hear someone playing very quiet music, or
it’s horrendously distorted, feel free to email the studio and tell the presenter they are being a clot!

Microphones: One for the presenter and three for guests, we’re using Audio Technica AT2035s.
They have adjustable noise filtering and are mounted in shock resistant cages; the counter-sprung
arms ensure that the mic can always be set in the right place.

Fiddly bits: Each of our guests can have the use of a set of AKG headphones, controlled via a
Behringer distribution amplifier, giving each user their own volume control. We’re currently using a
pair of basic studio monitor speakers (due to be replaced soon) and we’re now telling the time using
a radio signal controlled clock, so there’s no excuse for getting it wrong!

And that’s just about it; it all seems to work and I got some pleasant noises from it, so I guess
it’s OK (you’ll notice I’m not being over enthusiastic, that usually puts an irreversible curse on
everything).

I’ll put up more pictures when everything is complete and tidied but, until then, all that remains is
to thank our technical suppliers Broadcast Warehouse, Digital Village and Canford Audio, while
special thanks go to James and Michael from Taylor Building, for the excellent job on the furniture.

Finally, thank you for reading and we hope you enjoy listening; if you want to know any more
about our new facilities, get in touch via email, text, Twitter or Facebook and we’ll do our best to
help.

(Don’t forget to pop back for the P.S., coming soon)

The first thing to point out is that you can buy studio furniture, both off the shelf and built to order, but it costs literally thousands of pounds, which is money we just don’t have; so the object of the exercise was to make something that works as well and looks as good, but for an affordable price.

The plan was to use the frames from office desks as the base of the structure, partly because they are self supporting, fairly rigid and the right height, but mainly because they’re ready made, which would save a lot of time.

They also needed to take a fair bit of weight, not just because of the equipment, but also because the tops would be 38mm kitchen work surfaces, which are not exactly light; this material was chosen for it’s wide range of available finishes (we opted for a sort of black marble effect) and it’s hard wearing nature, important when you don’t want to be replacing it for a good while.

While you’re looking at the pretty pictures, see if you can name the hit recording artist for each song featured in the captions… answers at the end (and no scrolling down for a sneaky peek!).

I didn’t bother with any pictures of me wielding the hoover afterwards, they aren’t very interesting and it does nothing for my street cred!

Next time, we fit all the electrics and see if we can get some noise out of it all…………

Pop Quiz
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Ian studies progress in one of our new studios!

Well, the adventure begins… again!

After over six months without a home and several weeks of delicate negotiations, we finally got the
keys to our palatial new studio complex.

From the outside, looking in.

Sadly, there’s nothing in the safe.

If we leave the mixers long enough, they may start to breed…

Tuesday 14th June

Had our first presenters meeting at the new studio tonight, which was the first time most of them
had seen our new home; all very positive and there was a definite feeling that this was the start of a
new and exciting chapter in the life of SCR.

Earlier, I met with James Taylor to thrash out the dimensions and construction of our purpose built
console; he says he can get it done in a day (and he should know) all we have to do is source the
materials.

Getting this studio together will be an epic task, but confidence reigns supreme!!

Next time, I hope to post some pictures of people using actual tools, so keep checking back, if that’s
your thing.

Sainty