Community News

National Allotments Week highlighted the benefits of growing your own produce regardless of gender and age – but it’s not just people who benefit.  At Birmingham Wildlife Conservation Park on Pershore Road, the animals tuck into home-grown fruit, veg and herbs all year round. From lemon balm, lovage and lettuce to blackberries and bamboo, the meerkats, monkeys, lemurs and lynx all enjoy a healthy diet with food grown just whiskers away in the park’s Eco-Garden!

Dedicated services designed to eradicate homophobic, biphobic and transphobic (HBT) bullying from the classroom to the playground are up and running in Midlands. Three schemes will be run by Educate and Celebrate, the Anne Frank Trust and The National Children’s Bureau after being awarded money from a £2 million government fund specifically aimed at finding innovative ways to help prevent and eradicate the problem in schools across the country.

How do you get a tech loving child to step away from the game consoles and tablets and start making memories this summer? Get a dog! A survey by Dogs Trust, the UK’s largest dog welfare charity, found that parents cite** the family dog as a distraction for kids that are ordinarily glued to tech, 42% say the family take more exercise thanks to the pet dog and (44%) think their dog is their child’s best friend.

John Smith's is launching a campaign that is truly out of this world. The best selling ale brand has acquired the first ever pint shaped constellation, made up from 100 stars in the night sky, and is giving ordinary British blokes with extraordinary talents the chance to own one of them.

Parachuting teddies, a Poldark evening and sheep racing are just a few of the entries highlighting the creativity and broad-appeal in church insurer Ecclesiastical and Church Times’ Church Fundraising Idea of the Year Competition 2015. The nation-wide competition sets out to reward the best initiatives that have helped churches and other places of worship to raise much needed money to support their activities, building works, maintenance, etc. The top prize is £10,000, with five runner-up prizes of £2,000.

Google is visiting Birmingham next week as part of a countrywide roadshow to inform and train the public on how to be safer and more secure online. Following new Google search insights that indicate the public are concerned about how to secure their data online, the company will visit Birmingham to host a one-off training seminar on 21^st August at The Digital Garage.

A study has revealed that British men have square eyes as they consider their television (40 percent) to be something they couldn’t live without – but women are more practical and said they’d be lost if they didn’t have their toothbrush (49 percent). Researchers surveyed almost 2,000 mixed gender respondents who were asked to vote for the things they “couldn’t live without” and would always find the funds for.

Members of the UK Youth Parliament in Wolverhampton are calling on the city’s young people to make their mark. The annual Make Your Mark ballot gives young people the chance to decide what issues their Youth MPs should campaign on and debate in the House of Commons in the year ahead. Last year, more than 5,000 young people cast their vote in the ballot in Wolverhampton, joining around 875,000 nationally – making it the biggest youth consultation in the country.

With eight million British holidaymakers heading overseas for a holiday in August and millions making the most of summer on the UK coastline, ABTA and the Royal Life Saving Society (RLSS UK), the drowning prevention charity, are again reminding holidaymakers to follow safety tips and swim safely. In Europe, authorities are warning families and holidaymakers to be especially careful this summer as record temperatures have encouraged people unaccustomed to the water to go swimming.

Small, independent food and drink producers are one of the most important parts of the Show and we know how much our visitors love discovering something new. Nominate a small, independent food or drink producer via social media and they will be in for a chance to win a free stand package at one of our Shows.

Volunteers are being sought to become Birmingham Ambassadors during a month of high profile events expected to bring tens of thousands of visitors to the city in September. Birmingham Ambassadors will be the public face of the city for visitors during key events such as the Rugby World Cup matches at Villa Park on September 26 and 27, including at the fanzone at Eastside Park, as well as the opening of the refurbished New Street Station and the Grand Central shopping centre, plus the Birmingham Weekender, among others.

DogBuddy, Europe’s leading community for quality and affordable dog care services, has today revealed that thousands of pet dogs will be off enjoying their own holiday this summer (three times more than last year) with an experienced, insured dog sitter, whilst their owners jet off to sunnier climes.

To mark six months until the opening of Wolverhampton’s new Youth Zone, two of The Way’s national supporters, The Queen’s Trust and St James’s Place Foundation, came to Wolverhampton yesterday to see the site and meet members of the Youth Zone’s Young People’s Development Group who have helped shape the facility.

People are being asked to check their store cupboards and donate any spare tins or packets of food and toiletries they may have to help support families in need. Residents are being encouraged to either drop off items at one of the designated collection points or get together with colleagues and organise ‘Bring a Tin to Work’ appeals.