FRIDAY

The Phoenix Brothers are this week’s guests at the Sydenham Blues Club, at the Golden Lion pub. The music starts at 9pm and entry is free. More details are at www.sydenhambluesclub.co.uk

We Ghosts provide the music at The Hob in Forest Hill tomorrow night from nine and it’s also free.

The Stephen Lawrence charitable trust in Deptford is offering a free introduction to painting, ceramics and drawing from 10am till 1pm. Guest artists and tutors will give tips and support – and selected work will then be exhibited at the centre in May. The workshop is on a first-come first-served basis. To book, call 020 8100 2807.

A comedy about the day in the life of a motorway bridge and the users who go on it or under it each day is being performed at the London Theatre in New Cross this weekend. It’s £10, or £5 for concessions, and the show is on daily at 8pm until Saturday, and 5pm on Sunday. Call the box office on 020 8694 1888.

Leading Scottish folk performer Emily Smith (pictured) plays the Blackheath Halls from 8pm. Tickets are £16, or £14 for concessions, from the box office on 020 8463 0100.

New Cross film club Cinetopia’s next screening is on Friday from 7pm, and it’s a mystery film based in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Tickets are £11 and that includes the film, a quiz and hot food. To find out more, see cinetopiafilm.wordpress.com

The Brockley Jack has a performance of Olivier Lansley’s Immaculate. It’s about a young woman and an unexpected pregnancy. It’s at 8pm and tickets are £12, or £10 for concessions. The play is not suitable for under-16s.

Lewisham council and the local safer neighbourhoods team will be offering advice on crime prevention on Friday, at Sainsburys in Lower Sydenham from 11am till 3pm. They’ll provide a free bike security marking service and offer tips on how to avoid burglary and motor crime.

SATURDAY

The Hob in Forest Hill has stand-up comedy from Johnny Kats, Marc Burrows, Trevor Lock and Michael Smiley. It’s £9, or £6 for concessions, and it starts at 9pm. Find out more at www.edcomedy.com or call 020 8855 0496.

At Lewisham Arthouse, there’s a one-day course in photography and film processing from 11am till 4pm. It’s £45 pounds, or £40 for concessions, and you can book by calling 07914 247 672.

SUNDAY

The Marshmallow Blues Club returns to Hither Green village hall from 7.30pm till 11.30pm. There’ll be live entertainment from a house band and featured guests, plus a licensed bar and snacks. Entry is £5.

Victoria Simonsen and Benjamin Powell perform a Sunday morning concert of cello and piano music at the Blackheath Halls, including work from Beethoven, Slovak, Rossini and Britten. It starts at 11am and tickets are £14, or £12 for concessions, from the box office on 020 8463 0100.

THE REST OF THE WEEK

The organisers of the Sydenham Arts Festival are holding their annual general meeting on Monday evening – and all are invited to come along and find out about the plans for this summer’s event. The meeting is at Here for Good, on Sydenham Road, from 7.30pm. If you are unable to attend but would still like to volunteer for this summer, email operationssaf@gmail.com

Sydenham Tennis Club on Lawrie Park Road is organising a six-week introductory course on basic tennis techniques, starting on Wednesday evening. The sessions are every Wednesday from 7pm till 8pm and cost £20 for the full set of six. To find out more, call 07776 231 676 or see sltcc.co.uk

The Horniman Museum celebrates the art of morris dancing on Wednesday afternoon, with two live sessions at 2pm and 3.30pm where you can learn some of the moves. It’s suitable for anyone aged four and above, and it’s free to take part. To find out more call the museum on 020 8699 1872.

Community theatre group the Crofton Park Players are putting on a self-written play called Dominoes every night from Wednesday to Saturday at 7.45pm at the Brockley Jack. Tickets are £10, or £7 for concessions.

Retired Not Tired is a lively, upbeat group for people aged 60-plus who enjoy a song and a dance. They meet at the Saint Lawrence Centre on Bromley Road in Catford every Thursday morning between 10am till midday. It’s free to attend, no previous experience is required and you can find out more by calling 020 8305 4378.

At The Hob in Forest Hill, the All New Stand-Up Show is back on Monday from 8pm. Tickets are £3. Then, on Thursday, it’s the celebrity pub quiz from 9pm. Entry is £2 and details of both events can be found online at www.edcomedy.com

Bearspace gallery in Deptford High Street has an exhibition of large-scale figurative drawings inspired by synchronised swimming, by local artists Abbi Torrance and Paul Ridyard. It’s open until February 25th, from Wednesday to Saturday, 10am till 6pm and entry is free.

An eclectic exhibition of work from five local art students is on show at Lewisham Arthouse until Sunday. It’s open daily between noon and 6pm and it’s free. To find out more call 020 8244 3168.

The Broadway Studio Theatre presents a modern interpretation of the classic love story Romeo and Juliet this month, directed by Asia Osbourne. Performances run from Wednesday to Sunday, until 26th February, at 7.30pm. There are also some matinee performances at 2pm. Tickets range from £11 to £14.50, or from £8 to £11 for concessions, and the box office number is 020 8690 0002.

The Stephen Lawrence Centre in Deptford has an exhibition celebrating the works of contemporary photographers from Central Asia. It’s open until the end of February, daily from 10am till 5pm, and entry is free. To find out more call 020 8100 2800.

Lewisham College are organising an alternative Valentine’s Day dinner on Tuesday night to raise money for breast cancer charity the Lavender Trust. The three-course meal in the Phoenix restaurant costs £20 and includes a prize draw. It starts at 7.30pm and reservations are essential – call 020 8314 8636.

The Forest is a surprising and enchanting performance for anyone aged five and over, being performed at the Albany in Deptford from Monday till Thursday at 11am and 2pm. Tickets are £9, or £7.50 for concessions, from 020 8692 4446.

The London Theatre in New Cross presents two plays for the price of one this week, Shakespeare Unbound and The Wife. Performances are from Tuesday to Sunday at 8pm and tickets are £12.50, or £10 for concessions, from 020 8694 1888.

Renowned architect Eric Parry will be discussing his work at a lecture at Blackheath Halls on Wednesday night from 8pm. Tickets are £12, or £10 for concessions and £6 for students. The box office is on 020 8463 0100.

Teenagers in Sydenham are being offered the chance to learn basketball and interact with other young people this week at Sydenham High School. Sessions run from Monday to Friday and will include the basics of playing, coaching and refereeing. It’s for anyone aged 13 to 16, it’s free to take part, but you need to book a place in advance by calling Steven Bucknall on 07970 932 562.

The Horniman museum has plenty of half-term activities for children, including an art workshop on Wednesday when children aged three and above can learn how to make Egyptian masks. It’s open from 11am till 3.30pm and it’s free.

Also at the museum, I Love the Horniman is an event taking place on Monday and Tuesday. Children aged three and above are invited to come along and make a model of their favourite Horniman exhibit to contribute to a temporary art piece at the museum. It runs from 10.30am till 4pm on both Monday and Tuesday and it’s free to take part. Children must be accompanied by an adult. To find out more, call 020 8699 1872.

If you’re aged 13 to 25 and you’re interested in learning how to write plays, there’s a free half-term workshop at the Albany in Deptford this week. It runs from Monday to Friday, 11am till 4pm, and your finished work will then be performed by professional actors. To get involved, call 020 8692 4446.

Grove Park youth club is also arranging a busy week of free half-term entertainment, including sport, arts and creative activities, every day next week from 10am till 4pm. To find out more, call Andrew Brown on 07957 349 004.

ARE YOU ORGANISING AN EVENT?

Please send details with at least a week’s notice to events@sydenhamradio.co.uk

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

Sydenham Community Radio is launching a new project coming soon on Tuesday evenings; if you listen to the radio and want to be broadcast live on the internet then it could be for you!

WANT TO LEARN HOW TO INTERVIEW PEOPLE ON THE RADIO?

We’ll teach you how to interview people and include the different techniques used, different types of questions to ask and how to make a radio interview work.

WANT TO LEARN ABOUT HOW PEOPLE USED TO LIVE?

Once you’ve learnt how to interview people, we’ll set one up for you with an older person in the community, or perhaps you have an older neighbour or someone you know who you would like to interview. You can use your skills to learn how people used to live and help make a local history programme; find out what they did for fun, what music they listened to, what sport they played, even how they communicated without Facebook!

WANT TO GET EXPERIENCE OF WORKING IN THE MEDIA?

We’ll teach you how to use our equipment and you’ll get to see how a radio station works. Some of our volunteers have gone on to work in radio, so it could help you in the future.

INFORMATION FOR PARENTS

The course will run for four weeks, from 7:00pm-8:30pm. All our trainers are very experienced and trustworthy and there will always be a supervisor present who has all the relevant documentation to work with young people.

WANT TO JOIN IN?

Email us below to find out more, or to ask us any questions.

Venue: Sydenham Library, 210 Sydenham Road, London SE26 5SE

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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
notsineP eC eC 9, smailliW ydnA 8, redrO weN 7, nospmiS & drofhsA 6, yelserP sivlE 5, redliuB ehT boB 4, 2U 3, dlonrA PP 2, maJ 1.

Ian studies progress in one of our new studios!