NPL Sports Club will be hosting one of these matches as part of a children’s fun day on Sunday 5th September (11am-3pm).

As well as enjoying the day in person, you can help this cause by donating to this worthy cause via their fund-raising website and help them smash their £15,000 target!

In addition to the Cricket 6s match itself with players from the Harlequins team, the day will also feature:

• BBQ, Food & drink
• Ruggerbeez & Dance sessions
• Amazing raffle & auction prizes
• Face painting
• Children’s Entertainer and play area
• Goodie bags & Give Aways
• Cake sale & stalls
• Live Music
• ‘Singing Hands’ class

Happy Potter Ceramics is currently situated in a coffee shop in Weybridge on weekends but owners wanted to make this into a full-time business and bring this fun family activity to a wider audience.

Pottery painting is a fun, educational and child-friendly activity that will be available in the new shop – you can choose from a wide selection of bisque: mugs, teapots, cookie jars etc which you paint and leave to be fired in their kiln to pick up later. The pieces themselves make great bespoke and thoughtful gifts that will be treasured for many years.

They also offer a pottery kit so that you can spend longer on your designs at home, kids parties (on site and off), special commissions and baby foot-prints. This creative process won’t be limited to just pottery – you can create your own umbrella or tote bags designs amongst others.

Parents can join in the fun or instead relax with a coffee from their cafe which will also serve fresh sandwiches, a wide selection of different teas and coffee, cup cakes, flapjacks, brownies, crisps and jars of old-fashioned boiled sweets.

The shop will be very child-friendly, from the bouncy chairs for mums or dads to put their babies in to the dino or heart-shaped sandwiches in the kid’s lunch boxes! The garden at the back will also allow for outdoor activities and will host the useful ‘Buggy Park’.

Lots of special events will be held through the year for example the first one will be a kids Halloween party where the little terrors can dress up and paint some scary themed-pieces.

The shop will be open Monday-Saturday 10am -6pm and Sunday 11-5. Out of hour bookings are also welcome on request.
www.happypotterceramics.co.uk.

** NOTE: the planned party for the 7th August has now been postponed until September – update to follow **

Over the past year thanks to generous donations the shop currently has 10,000 books in stock and has sold an incredible 122,000. A quarter of these were children’s titles and to thank those who have been bought titles or been entertained by bedtime stories over the last year, there will be a party in the store next Saturday that will include:

• Face-painting
• Fancy dress competition
• Free refreshments
• 3 for 2 offer on kids books
• Story-telling

Pixie the rocking horse looking after the children’s book section

Fara Books would like to say a big Thank You to all their regular customers and warmly welcome anyone visiting them for the first time. You can pick up books in the shop at roughly a quarter of the price you will find them new elsewhere. Amongst the more common titles are hidden treasures including rare box-sets and first editions.

The anniversary festivities will take place on Saturday 7th August 2010 from 9:30am to 5:30pm. Why not have the kids dress as their favourite book character and pop down to join in the fun!

Despite signs that the scheme was doomed to be scrapped, opponents were still being asked to register their objections against the council planning application page which has probably smashed all records for the number of comments submitted!

His statement on the matter: “Plans to introduce car parking charges in these parks were the subject of fierce public opposition from the moment they were first proposed, some 18 months ago, and the local MPs have been lobbying me hard so, after discussing it with them and with the Mayor’s office, I’ve decided to scrap the idea immediately. Given the current economic climate, we will need to find alternative sources of income instead, but we will try to respect local residents’ views and preserve the environment of these wonderful and precious spaces too.”

One scheme being considered is a monthly farmers market in Richmond and Bushy Parks that may include the sale of park-reared venison.

One of the sights that will continue to be enjoyed for free: Diana Fountain at the centre of Bushy Park. Photo: 4orty7even

Opposition MPs such as Zac Goldsmith gave assurances before the election that the charges would be scrapped if Tories came to power and the new coalition Government has now honoured this pledge ensuring that visiting the borough’s parks will ‘never become a budget decision’.

Since the new Government has taken power some swift changes including this one have come into effect including the reversal of the planned luxury housing development on Twickenham Riverside – a piece of which was handed back to the public yesterday to be used as a sun terrace, with promises of more public consultation about the future use for the whole site.

Other changes however are in the form of huge cost-cutting to help public finances starting with the cancellation of almost £2billion worth of projects. Amongst those to be cancelled is Labours ambitious “Building Schools for the Future” programme – leaving over 700 planned school regeneration projects paused for the forseeable future.

Some schools in Teddington however are already undergoing Government and privately funded redevelopment and expansion this year so will surely be unaffected by these cutbacks. Teddington is certainly undergoing changes for the better – strengthening its reputation as a hotspot for excellent schools and regenerating run-down areas and buildings into more appropriate and attractive uses in some notable developments.

Teddington School is amongst those with planned major work over the summer holidays. To celebrate the end of the ‘old school’, pupils, staff and parents – past and present – are welcome to attend an exhibition and series of tours on Saturday, July 10th 11am-2:30pm. This will be the last chance to see the existing school before the new building is unveiled in September. For further info email: pta@teddington.richmond.sch.uk.

Old equipment such as mobile phones, IT kit, kettles, hair dryers, shavers, lawnmowers, drills etc – basically anything with a plug, uses batteries or is rechargeable fall into this category.

This scheme is mainly for electricals that aren’t in working order so why not check out your shed/garage or that ‘miscellaneous drawer’ to see if any items that qualify (or have a crossed-out wheelie bin logo on it). An estimated three-quarters of all households have unused WEEE items lying around that could be recycled – these contain plastics and metals that can find use in new products.

These items can be recycled at Townmead Road Re-use and Recycling Centre where you will receive tokens for some small items that can be registered to a school participating to win various prizes and vouchers.

Local schools in this scheme are:

• Hampton Hill Junior School, Hampton Hill
• Holy Trinity C of E Primary School, Richmond
• Orleans Infant School, Twickenham
• St Richard with St Andrew’s C of E Primary School, Ham
• St Elizabeth’s Catholic Primary School, Richmond
• Stanley Infant School, Teddington
• Waldegrave School for Girls, Twickenham

If however you have any items that are still in working order, you can also donate these to one of over 90 British Heart Foundation Furniture and Electrical stores across the UK to help raise money for this worthwhile charity. The full list of stores can be found here: www.bhf.org.uk/recycle – smaller donations can be dropped off at these locations or you can arrange for larger items such as furniture to be picked up.

[Update] Holy Trinity School in Richmond won this challenge and won £500 of gardening vouchers.

This popular day has been running since 2003 and since then has had over 400 teams of six enter the competition. Awards were initially based on altitude and distance but now include landing accuracy combined with flight-time.

The schools event in the afternoon is fully booked, but the Open Event (for older rocket enthusiasts) which starts at 6pm still has some places available if people would like to enter a team – full instructions and registration forms are on the NPL website: www.npl.co.uk/waterrockets.

If you don’t want to enter a team then you are more than welcome to come along and spectate (entry £2 – all proceeds towards Shooting Star Hospice) – the NPL Pavilion will be providing a BBQ and serving beverages.

If you have any further water rocket-related enquiries, contact waterrockets@npl.co.uk.

[Update] Video highlights of the competition.

Lara Denaro, 16, from Teddington School has been awarded the lofty title of London’s best young crime writer. Her story “The Phone Box” beat 200 other entries to win the London region of the National Young Crime Writers Competition.

Her story tackles the hot issue of knife crime and will now go forward to join 14 others in the national final to be decided during National Crime Fiction Week (ending on 20th June)

Also flying the flag for excellence at Teddington School is Polish-born 14 year-old Julia Zajac who has been praised by judges for innovative use of materials that included a protractor, earphones, safety pins and a plastic lid.

She has won the London College of Fashion’s annual national jewellery design competition despite only moving to Kingston four years ago and overcoming language difficulties. Her winning piece is an owl-shaped necklace and won the Fashion Hidden Treasure competition.

Julia wins a place on a jewellery workshop at this college and an invitation to its Fashion Design Technology Graduate Show in London.

Combining experience-based tuition, fun exercises and hands-on film-making, the course encourages creativity and self-expression as well as building confidence and teamwork skills in new and exciting ways.

The term time students have so far learnt how to produce and direct their own news reports, music videos, movie trailers, documentaries and many more. All of the students work can be viewed on their very own online TV station www.filmstepstv.com – here’s one example for a fund-raising telethon from the Teddington crew.

Due to the outstanding success of Filmsteps term time film school, 7-16 years olds can now write, produce, direct and shoot their own mini feature film in a week during the holidays.

Filmsteps Summer Schools 2010 is offering a two weekly courses in Teddington that will feature:
• Scriptwriting
• Acting
• Directing
• Camera operating
• Storyboarding
• Stage Combat Workshop
• Breakfast Club from 9am
• Awards Ceremony
• Wrap Party
• A big screen viewing of all films at a Red Carpet screening at the Curzon cinema in September

The course runs on 26th – 30st July and 2nd – 6th August, 10am-4pm.

Fee: £275 for the week. Early Bird Special Offer when booked before end of June (£250). Sibling discounted rate, £180.

Term-time School: Saturdays 10:30-12:30 from 18th September – 27th November 2010. Waldegrave School, Twickenham TW2 5LH

For more information or to make a booking: Ring 0870 922 9514 or visit their website www.filmsteps.com and click on Term Time Schools/Teddington.
Email: teddington@filmsteps.com

If you are looking for something to do when the kids are back to school after Easter, local family charity Home-Start Richmond may have the answer. Their new free training course starts on 29th April and runs on Thursdays during school hours.

Local people with parenting experience, who can spare a few hours a week, can be trained to support parents with young children who are experiencing difficulties such as post-natal depression, disability and isolation. Home-Start is already supporting a number of families in Teddington but there is a waiting list of people who still need their help.

For further information, please contact Julie on 020 8487 8500 or info@homestart-richmond.org.uk.

Alternatively visit www.homestart-richmond.org.uk.
Registered Charity no: 1108975 Company no: 5386801

Check out the School’s development page to see more time-lapse recordings, plans and other updates.