🏊 Water Safety with BSA & Victory Academy

For the past 12 weeks, we've worked with The Black Swimming Association and The Victory Academy to design and deliver a life saving water safety programme. With drowning ranking among the leading causes of accidental death, claiming the lives of approximately 400 people each year, it's crucial to equip young people with life-saving skills and knowledge. 

Our programme supported and empowered a group of 17 young people from The Victory Academy who lacked swimming proficiency to become competent swimmers and advocates of water safety. In addition to their weekly pool sessions, the programme provided unique opportunities to explore aquatic-related careers. Through a range of enrichment activities, participants gained invaluable insights into different aspects of the aquatic industry.

The first activity was discovering the world of managing the River Thames at Port Of London Authority and learning about the heroic efforts of the RNLI at their Gravesend Lifeboat Station. 

Later in the programme they headed to London to visit Sky Studios for a hands-on broadcast production experience and to produce their own water safety news reel.  

At Pentland Brands with Gung Ho they were immersed into aquatics branding and public relations.

The final enrichment activity took place at Chatham Maritime Watersports Centre where attendees learnt the art of kayaking and put their team working skills to the test with a raft build, race activity and recorded a water safety rap. 

Throughout the programme, we documented the transformative journey of these young individuals, capturing their growth and achievements. These experiences were compiled into a 10-minute film, which was screened for the first time at a celebration event. 

We’re proud to say that this programme, delivered in collaboration with The Black Swimming Association and The Victory Academy, has equipped these young people with life-saving water safety skills, as well as providing exposure to broader aquatic careers.

 


🏀 April Fit & Fed 2023

You guessed it, in April we had our Fit & Fed programme continue thanks to the support of Medway Go.

This time around we ran for four days, Monday to Thursday, for the 1st week of the Easter half term.

Despite the temperamental weather, over 55 young people joined us each day to be immersed in a world of sporting and creative activities provided by Nucleus ArtsOlympia BoxingSport On Your DoorstepStreet Games, etc. 

Here’s a glimpse of the fun we got up to this time around!


🌳 Luton Road's Greening Continues

Our Big Local Plan over the last number of years has reaffirmed our commitment to improving air quality, biodiversity and sense of place through street tree planting. 

You may recall in February 2022 we hit a mile stone of planting Luton Road’s first ever street tree at a very busy and complicated road junction. This February we blew this effort out of the water. 

Despite running our busiest ever February Fit & Fed, on the two days that followed we planted a further 7 hardstanding trees running from the The Kabin to Christ Church, Luton.

This effort wouldn't have been possible without the support and generosity of Bell UK, Barcham Trees, Medway Council, Luton Primary School & countless others - teamwork makes the dream work. 


May Fit & Fed 🎳

You guessed it, Fit & Fed was back in May/June half term. 

The programme continued as it left off in Spring, two sessions a day over three days at Luton Primary School. 

Over 60 young people each day were immersed into a world of sporting and creative activities provided by Nucleus Arts, Olympia Boxing, Sport On Your Doorstep, Street Games, etc. All topped off with a nutritious lunch. 

We now begin preparations for our summer programme to ensure its a summer not to forget.  

Here’s a glimpse of the fun we got up to this time around! 

 


Spring Fit & Fed 🏸

Thanks to our partners and Medway Go, we were out again running Fit & Fed for two sessions a day over four days this spring half term at Luton Primary School. 

Read more


Life Skills Club 💵

Here are the money saving shopping tips you shared during our Life Skills Club session in November.

Top Cash Back App

https://www.topcashback.co.uk/

Shop online? Check out this app for money saving deals from a wide range of suppliers before shopping online.

It’s free to join but there is £5 annual fee if you choose the Plus account.

Make sure you understand how the scheme works before signing up to join it.

02 Air Time Rewards App

By shopping at selected stores, 02 customers can collect points that give them cash back on their air time and if they have enough points, monthly bonus reward.

If 02 is your service provider, check out this deal.

If not, see if yours has a similar scheme.

Bulk Buy

Best deals for many kitchen cupboard staples, and household essentials ranging from tinned tomatoes, baked beans and potatoes to toilet paper, toothpaste and cleaning products, are often cheaper bought in bulk. This is neither practical nor affordable for most of us as individuals but can be, by splitting the cost (and goods) with friends.

Shopping List

Make a shopping list that fits in with your budget and stick to it.

Shop Alone

Shopping with others, especially children who get bored easily, can lead to unnecessary purchases of sweet treats to keep them quiet, or non-essential items they have spotted that aren’t on your shopping list or within your budget.

Essential Household Items - 01634 383760

Citizens Advice provide support for people living in Medway, in need of emergency help to access essential household items such as beds and white goods 

 

Join us for our next session on 9th December from 1:00 - 2:30 at Luton Invicta Club, Luton Road.   

 


Luton’s Urban Trees Movable Forest has landed!

Medway’s first, one-of-a-kind ‘movable forest’ has landed in a Chatham primary school, thanks to resident-led organisation Arches Local.

Working together with Medway Plus, a locally-based charity, we were successful in gaining funding in November 2019 from PostCode Local Trust for £10,000.00 together with £5,000.00 Big Local Match Funding totaling £15,000.00.

Partly due to the complications around COVID-19, we were not able to fully deliver the goals of the original Luton’s Urban Trees submission. This led to us not being able to plant as many street trees as originally planned. In March 2020, Postcode Local Trust announced that the funding we had received was considered unrestricted (with certain conditions in place).

With this announcement in mind, we developed a ‘movable forest’ concept of placing large trees in large containers that could be flexibly moved around the Luton area of Chatham. These trees were planned to be initially placed at a local primary school which has no discernible tree canopy, suffering from swathes of hard standing playgrounds.

Read more


Active Arches Fit and Fed Summer 2020

We been very busy trying to get our Fit and Fed program up and running over these Summer Holiday and adhering to all the Covid 19 restrictions that are or were in place.

This led to us having to limit the numbers of young people that could attend to a maximum of 30 each day, which is very disappointing given on average we had more than double that amount the previous summer. Though unfortunate very necessary given the global pandemic and ensuring the safety and good health for those young people and their families who were able to take part in our summer program.

 

Read more


Friends of Luton Millennium Green?

We are looking for people who care about our local park and green space, to help us form a Friends of Luton Millennium Green Group.

Read more


Try our #TreeTrail Walk

Using the ticl.me app we have created a Tree Trail walk through Luton Millennium Green and beyond for anyone to enjoy. Along the Tree Trail we have marked species of Trees, other fauna and points of interest for you to check out.

We plan to keep updating and adding more to the trail but please have go of the walk and tell us what you think? We hope you enjoy doing it as much as we did making it!