Post-event updates

Dear Friends,

We wish to thank all of you that came along to the Kingsley Hall last Friday, nevertheless the rain and cold.

Thank you to Liam Kirk for chairing the event, Dr Kevin Zdaniecki and David Amery for their talks, Steve Woodhams for the updates about the LifeHouse Centre, The Mudlarks for their live music, David Kessel, Sarah Barratt and Madeline Kenley for their poetry reading, David Baker for overseeing all audio and visual and letting us access to a warm hall, Georgina Sullivan for facilitating access for the hearing impaired via live captions, and the brilliant team of helpers Miriam, Claudio, Myra. Thank you to all!

A transcript will be available in the next few days. Please, send us an email if you wish to receive a copy: f.e.e.l.campaign@gmail.com. Next meeting at LARC will be on Monday the 15th of December.

The William Blake Congregation warmly invite you to William Blake's 257th Birthday gathering on Friday 28th November at 1pm in the Blake room at Tate Britain. Bring poetry,music,song,cake. We will repair to the Morpeth Arms nearby afterwards. Free.

Blake Birthday Celebration are also taking place later today Monday 24th Nov at the Dragon Cafe. From 7-8.30pm. Poetry,music & dance to celebrate Blake's Birthday with The Children, John Constable, Grassy Noel, Micalef & more.



Save Our Surgeries (SOS) campaigners promise new wave of action to defend practices threatened by MPIG cuts. A new meeting is planned for Wednesday 26 November at 7.30pm, taking place at Lauriston Primary School, 55 Rutland Road, E9 7JS Hackney. Speakers will include Meg Hillier MP (Lab, Hackney South & Shoreditch), Dr Louise Irvine from the Save Lewisham Hospital campaign, retired Hackney GP Dr Mike Fitzpatrick, Tower Hamlets GP Dr Sally Hull and Virginia Patania from the Jubilee Street Practice, which ignited the campaign when it announced it would be forced to close if MPIG cuts went ahead. SOS is calling for all changes to GP funding to be put on hold, pending the review of GP funding that is due to start in 2015. The campaigners say any new funding formula must take factors like deprivation into account, and that all practices should receive fair funding to meet the needs of their patients, whichever contract they are working to.


Fight Back! Feel Better! Campaigns against a political and economical system which causes sickness. They are having a launching event with discussions, performances and stalls on Thursday, December 4 at 7:00pm Unite the Union, London Regional Office, 33-37 Moreland Street, London, EC1V

Latest updates

Dear Friends

Returning from the WHFS AGM today, I felt very inspired by the amazing work that is carried out by several remarkable women in our borough of Tower Hamlets, along them is Myra Garrett, co-chair of the charity. Do please have a look at their website and consider sending out a donation to support their work www.whfs.org.uk/

We would like to reach you with one more reminder about our public event "Sanity for Beginners" at the Kingsley Hall tomorrow evening, Friday the 21st. We also wish to send our best wishes for a prompt recovery to Denise McKenna that, due to ill health won't be able to join us for the event.

Alongside Dr Kevin Zdaniecki, other speakers for the evening will be David Amery, talking about "Homelessness and mental heath" and we are going to have a little update in regards to the Lifehouse project carried out by some of our members.

The William Blake Congregation warmly invite you to William Blake's 257th Birthday gathering on Friday 28th November at 1pm in the Blake room at Tate Britain. Bring poetry, music, song, cake.We will repair to the Morpeth Arms nearby afterwards. Free. All are Welcome.

We would also like to wish a very happy first anniversary to our cousins at Eastbeat that will be celebrating on Tuesday the 2nd of December from 7pm with some fine musicians presented by the extraordinary Jazzman John Clarke. Part of the evening will also have a tribute paid to Isaac Rosenberg, local First World War poet & visual artist. The 'Three Bees' cafe' will be serving nutritious reasonably-priced food from 4pm.

Looking forward to see many of you tomorrow.

Simon Hughes MP Q&A at CoolTan Arts, SE17

Thursday 13th November 2014
 

Dear F.E.E.L.,                          

This afternoon at CoolTan Arts, SE17 Simon Hughes MP attended a Q&A meeting with the clients. Below are my two questions to Simon Hughes MP: 

 (i) The Care Quality Commission have recorded that 16.2 per cent of Community Treatment Orders in England are made against black people. Contrast that with the number of black people in English society and tell me that the psychiatric wing of the National Health Service is not institutionally racist. What can be done to eradicate the conscious and unconscious racial bias among doctors?

 (ii) I have a personal question. Could you ask Nick Clegg if he remembers ‘Sookie’? For your benefit Sookie at prep school was Nick’s best friend. Sookie in later life was my best friend and he passed away this year at the age of 48. At death he was on 17 different types of medication each costing the taxpayer several hundred pounds a month and it is clear that twenty-five years of being on numerous psychotropic drugs caused the early demise of my friend. 

As a consequence of my questions I have been invited to meet with The Rt Hon. Nick Clegg DPM to discuss Open Dialogue and the issues raised in my questions. This meeting could be as early as next week. I would advise in relation to the first question the MP challenged the statistics quoting that 11 per cent of the British population are from BME groups however, he did say the figure was unacceptably high. It should be noted although BME groups may be at the level of 11 per cent in society, the proportion of black people I believe is around 4 per cent, and that black people are 7 (seven) times more likely to be diagnosed as being 'psychotic' than their white counterparts. Simon Hughes MP intimated that I and others would be invited to put our views forward at a series of meetings within government.

By Liam Kirk

November Newsletter

Dear Friends,

We are celebrating F.E.E.L. 7th Anniversary this month and we would like to invite you to join us next week for our November meeting at LARC on Monday 17th and our event at the Kingsley Hall on Friday 21st.

We would also like to congratulate with Myra Garrett for receiving a well deserved Community Champion Award in Tower Hamlets for her outstanding contributions in remarkable projects such as the Friends of St Clements, the WHFS (Women’s Health & Family Services), the service users run centre Bow Haven, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the more recent Save Our Surgeries, to name a few.

November is also William Blake month and celebration and activities dedicate to him organised by Helen and Micalef will take place at the Dragon Cafe each Monday this month.

There will be a closing event at Tate Britain on Friday the 28th at 1pm for Blake's 357th birthday itself.

INSIDER - An art exhibition on mental wellbeing by artist Sidsel Meineche Hansen at the Cubitt Gallery, 8 Angel Mews, N1 9HH, Tuesday - Sunday, 12­.00 - 6.00pm or by appointment. The exhibition deals with mental wellbeing and features an 8-minute animation film, prints and sculpture. During the week the gallery is able to welcome visitors (individually or as a group) and offer a small talk and answer any questions. Runs until Sunday 16 November. You are invited to join a FREE TOUR of the exhibition with the curator Fatima Hellberg on MONDAY 10th NOVEMBER at 4.00pm. For more information please call Fatima on 020 7278 8226

The National Involvement Partnership have publicised The Language of Mental Wellbeing document: this can be accessed here

Next Survivors History Group is on Wednesday 26.11.2014, 12 Old St, London EC1V 9BE at 1pm.