Posts Categorized: Latest News

Date: 22 Feb 2012

The RSA Trust gave Edmonton Eagles Boxing Club a grant of £20,000 recently. Trustee Martin Jewell handed over the cheque at one of their gala events.

The Boxing Club will use the money to fund a series of twice weekly boxing and fitness workshops for young people across Enfield, including here on Enfield Island Village. These sessions help teach young people discipline and patience, as well as boosting their fitness levels.

Alongside Martin, his wife, Doreen Willis was also presenting a cheque for £10,000 on behalf of Metaswitch, the influential Enfield based IT company, formerly known as Data Connection.

Date: 18 Jan 2012

Recession! Doom! Gloom! Eurozone Bailout!

These headlines are all too common today. But in Enfield at least, local entrepreneurs are defying the national media?s constant doom-mongering. The RSA Trust and our partners at Enterprise Enfield are giving local people the skills and support to help new businesspeople support themselves.

Diliana Stoynova has done just that, opening Fairies of London, on Wades Hill, Winchmore Hill, after taking part in the RSA Trust Inspiring Women programme, run by Enterprise Enfield. The mentoring she received helped her create profits from her passion of cake making. Speaking to the Enfield Gazette, Ms. Stoynova said, ?A great deal of time was taken to perfect the recipes and designs of our cupcakes to ensure our customers? senses are delighted and our cakes look as good as they taste!?

Like all good businesswomen she knows to make her shop a success by going beyond the basic. As well as selling her cakes, she also sells teas, Italian coffees and sandwiches. She also offers cake decorating and activities for the kids!

The RSA Trust Inspiring Women programme is a six month course which has been run twice a year by Enterprise Enfield since 2008. Last year, other former attendees set up a networking club, WE Network, to continue supporting one another. The RSA Trust is proud to sponsor this group too, as well as other Business Counselling and newsletter services managed by Enterprise Enfield.

Date: 03 Jan 2012

RDF Construction, a business at the RSA Island Centre, has very kindly donated a Christmas Tree to the Enfield Island Village community. The tree stands tall beside the canal basin, opposite Island Fitness.

The Christmas Tree added to the festive ambiance of the bustling French Market held on Sunday 11 December, arranged by the Enfield Island Village Trust.

Around 150 people attended Christmas carols around the tree on Sunday 18 December organised by the Oasis Church.

RSA Island Village Limited would like to thank RDF for its kind donation, and the Enfield Island Village Trust and Oasis Church for their hard work in arranging such successful community events at the RSA Island Centre.

RDF Construction provides a comprehensive range of construction solutions for every conceivable situation, including new builds, refurbishment, design and build or traditional contracts.  For more information please contact RDF on 01992 809 995.

Oasis Church seeks to serve the families of Enfield Lock. Every week it partners with Enfield Island Youth & Community Trust (EIYCT) to deliver a Kidz Club for 7 – 11s and a group for 10 – 13s for local residents.  One of the ways they support familities is through community events such as the Carol Service.  For information about 2012 events or the church calendar, contact Craig Bird on 01992 655 643 or visit www.church.co.uk/enfield

The Enfield Island Village Trust runs the Community Hall on the Island and arranges community events.  More information about the Trust can be accessed by clicking this link: http://www.eiv.org.uk/ or on Facebook here

Date: 21 Sep 2011

If you read today’s Metro, you may have seen that Sir Richard Branson has opened a £2.2 million Centre for Entrepreneurship in Jamaica. Indeed you may have wondered why nobody is doing anything similar here, in Enfield.

Well we and Enterprise Enfield ARE doing something, and have been for the last four years. Our Inspiring Women programme has been running for the past four years, giving women in Enfield the skills and support to become successful businesswomen.

Just read this article in the Enfield Advertiser to find out how Martha Ferguson and her kitchenware shop Papylon benefited!

To get involved with next year’s programme, please visit Enterprise Enfield’s site here.

Date: 15 Sep 2011

We are VERY excited. The Interpretation Centre officially reopens on Saturday, coinciding with London Open House Weekend.

The centre was closed and collection put in storage during the unpleasant events of last month. In that time the Centre has been given a thorough clean, and all the objects have been inspected, polished and preserved.

On Saturday you can also quiz the four former employees of the factory to find out more about our unique heritage. So, see you then!

Date: 09 Aug 2011

Due to the current situation in Enfield Lock the Board of Trustees and staff of the RSA Trust have closed the Interpretation Centre until further notice. This is to protect the unique and irreplaceable items in the RSAF collection. The Youth Centre remains open as usual. The collection has been distributed to several safe locations off site.

We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause you, should you wish to visit the site in the near future.

Date: 04 Jun 2011

More Funding Success. EIYCT and Oasis have this week been awarded £5000 from L&Q Neighbourhood Teams to invest into the new Oasis Community Garden. For the first time families from the Enfield Lock and Enfield Island Village will have a community space to learn how to grow their own food. It will be a place for diverse groups in our community to share in a common project, enjoy getting to know new people, work together and of course, celebrate our success. Who knows, maybe we?ll soon have a giant-vegetable-growers competition!!

Keep checking this RSA and www.oasischurch.info/enfield websites for future workshop and community dates in the garden.

Date: 03 Jun 2011

We had another successful day on the Oasis Community Garden today and I wanted to share our success with you. Having worked so hard yesterday to get the beds cleared, we had a great turnout for finishing off the ground and getting planting! 47 people including helpers and 6 wonderful guests, were part of the day, 18 children, 8 parent workers, and a fabulous BBQ cooked by 8 of the EIYCT young people.

The children loved seeing the tractor bringing up tyres and compost, and all enjoyed waiting for the trailer to pull up so they could busily scrape out 1.5 tonnes of compost ready for filling the tyres! The older boys felt like a real ?Bob the builder? as they emptied the trailer shovel by shovel. The children loaded up buckets of compost and carried them over to fill up tyres, and as the morning progressed, the youth soon took over with the wheelbarrow and created brand new planting pots.

Our gardening workshop taught us the difference between vegetables that grow beneath and above ground and how to plant, tend and harvest our new vegetable and herb garden. Parents got stuck into digging out weed-roots, some of which were 2 feet deep! And our guest workshop leader showed us how to plan out the newly levelled vegetable beds. Soon we had a few towers for the runner beans to grow up and lovely lines of carrots, beetroot, herbs, leeks, and some soon to be colourful sunflowers!

With such a hot day it was lovely to see the children enjoying the outside and getting stuck into digging, and plenty of watering! And after such a busy morning the burgers and chicken cooked up by our junior chefs was a welcome break!

We were delighted that one of our local councillors Nneka was able to join us in her lunch break from work and soon was digging and planting despite being in full business dress! And we know it was not an easy time to come because of work commitments, so appreciated that many who wanted to come simply could not. We were delighted to have Ciaran Porter from L&Q with us whose Neighbourhood Funds have given substantial funding to support the project, he similarly was soon stuck in filling tyres and shovelling mud along with our parents, children and young people. Similarly it was lovely to have some other parents and the Oasis Children Centre Team join us to share in our successful day. It was a great demonstration of lots of people from a broad range of our community coming together for a shared purpose of creating a space to grow things, celebrate our success and learn new skills as well as make new friends.

So as I have said a few times, it is now time to figure out how we can all use the site ongoingly. A little bit of time from lots of groups will keep it looking great, and it really is a great space for formal, informal and fun learning; building community; sharing; and experiencing a part of life that living in a city, often without gardens, many of us do not get to enjoy.

Finally let me say thank you to EIYCT (sponsored by RSA TRUST), Oasis, L&Q Neighbourhood Fund, Extended Schools funding, Capital Growth grants, PAYP, Linbrooks who have provided finance, time or in-kind supplies, and of course our parents and children who have enjoyed the half-term workshops!

We look forward to seeing you soon at the Oasis Community Garden!

Date: 31 May 2011

We’re pleased to say that a group of parents and children from Enfield Lock today started work on their new community garden on the oasis academy site.

The children were digging, watering, collecting snails, removing weeds, and making garden collages and signs whilst parents sweated away digging out weeds and preparing the soil!

Look out for more updates later when we’ve begun planting!

Date: 23 May 2011

On Saturday some of the families of children and young people engaging in EIYCT provision turned out to the local Councillor public meeting about the Residents Fund.

The Ward Councillors have £121,000 to spend on projects benefitting Enfield Lock and Enfield Island Village this year and they invited the community to discuss potential ideas.

It was great to see the families taking ownership of their community and acknowledging the work of EIYCT and the partnership between OASIS and the RSA Trust as providers that bring a real benefit. They came up with great ideas and there is growing willingness for families to invest their time and energy as well as benefiting from community provision.