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Maybe you are a fan of The Wheels on the Bus or Wind the Bobbin up? Now you have a chance to vote for your favourite nursery rhyme over at Rhyme Stars.

BT’s Openreach will donate £1 for every vote registered and you can win an iPod touch. If 50,000 people vote by 30th April then an extra £50,000 will be donated so get voting!

Also, if you are keen on karaoke then you can record your own rhyme to raise an extra £2 for charity! Not for the shy though as everyone will be able to listen to you warbling.

According to the website, the top ten are currently:

1 Twinkle Twinkle little star

2 Incey Wincey Spider

3 Baa Baa Black Sheep

4 Row Row Row your boat

5 Old MacDonald had a farm

6 Round and round the garden

7 Grand Old Duke of York

8 Humpty Dumpty

9 1,2,3,4,5 Once I Caught a Fish Alive

10 5 little ducks went swimming one day

I had to add my personal favourite to the list which is “A Frog He Would A-Wooing Go”. It is a great one for singing along to in the car

Following on from the previous post, I’ve just received this from Andrew Pakes, a councillor for Southwark where the Livesey is

Hello

Thank you for signing the online ‘Save the Livesey Children’s Museum’ petition, there has been a great response from all parts of the community and from supporters across the world.

Despite the overwhelming response and positive coverage in the South London Press and Southwark News, this morning the Council tabled its recommendation that the Museum should close at the end of March. The announcement was contained in just one sentence in a 14-page report.

Overall, closing the Museum will ‘save’ Southwark Council £140,000 – a lot of money but a small sum compared to budget as a whole. It is also considerably less than what the council proposes to spend on publicity, consultants, agency workers or a range of other items.

The recommendation will be discussed next Tuesday by the Executive – these are the Lib Dem and Tory councillors who have proposed these cuts.

So, we still have a lot to do in fighting this devastating cut. Please forward this email onto anyone else who has not yet signed the petition and ask them to do so:

http://www.gopetition.com/online/16681.html

For more information on the Museum visit: www.liveseymuseum.org.uk.

The more support we can get the better. This is a fantastic Museum and a great resource for children, parents and the local community. Shame on the Leadership of Southwark Council for putting self-interest and political spin before the needs of our local community in in Peckham and the children who benefit from the Museum.

Please do email me at this address if you have any ideas about how else we might highlight this issues or fight the cuts.

Kind regards

Andrew

Cllr Andrew Pakes
Member for Livesey Ward

Southwark Council is threatening its museums with total closure from April. These are the Cuming Museum and the Livesey Museum for Children. The Livesey is especially vulnerable as it does not house a collection.

It’s depressing news, but news that we can hopefully all do something about. As the Facebook Group involved Save Southwark’s Museums, says

“These museums are located in one of the most deprived areas of London. The museums and their staff are already operating with minimal resources but reach local disadvantaged communities, schools and families and provide value for money. Everyone involved in the museums, as friend or staff, has plenty of evidence of the impact of the rich collections and innovative displays on visitors.

Time is short because the Executive meeting to make the budget cuts decision is on 12th February (7pm). You are urged to contact Southwark Council, MP’s and senior influencers in museums, communities and education to explain why you believe these museums provide such an essential service. If you write to your MP, copy to Andy Burnham, the Secretary of State for Culture (see http://andyburnham.org/ )

Please also sign the petition“

Please help. Please.

WebUrbanist has an interesting post on urban adventure playgrounds. The following certainly struck a chord.

In a sense, you and I have always played in “adventure playgrounds.” We created a fort in the kitchen cabinets, jumped from couch to couch across oceans; we snuck out through a hole in the fence to a new world. We climbed trees and hid in bushes. We played in the mud and the rain. We chased each other, made secret worlds with our own language. We created spaces with whatever we could find around us. Some of us played in abandoned buildings, or barns, or vacant lots between buildings, used what we found and made up stories of our lives to be. We looked everywhere to find our space.

One of the links took me to a charity I’d not heard of before called London Play. Their mission is

To enhance the development and education of children in the Greater London area by developing and supporting the provision of children’s play, primarily by:
• improving the quality, diversity and accessibility of play opportunities in London;
• raising awareness of the importance of play in the development of London’s children;
• promoting co-operation and co-ordination amongst the play sector in London;
• developing a network of local play support agencies in every London borough.

Why? Well …

“Sadly, and increasingly, children are unable or not allowed to go out to play, and engage freely in play activities that a generation ago would have been taken for granted.

There is a serious danger of serious and long lasting damage to a whole generation of children by denying them opportunities to explore, experiment, and experience the wide, wonderful world around them. Being ‘wrapped in cotton wool’, children are deprived of the most natural part of childhood – playing and taking risks. It is only by direct personal experience that children learn to assess and overcome danger and hazardous situations, and gain varied and flexible responses to the different situations they find themselves in.”

I couldn’t agree more. I’ve just sent off the form to register Little Legends’ support, and we’ll be adding London Play certified playgrounds from tomorrow onwards. It’s great to know I’ll be able to keep one resolution!

Join in the short family walks taking place across the UK to give children orphaned by AIDS a better future. There is a small entry fee of £5 and all proceeds go to Save the Children.

The next walk is happening in Battersea Park on Sunday 19th August (10.30am start). You are given a goody bag and there is a chance to meet Children’s TV Characters.

To register and to get more information about the walks go to Pushy Mums

Go ahead and help push for change

The above new UK website called Childmissing.co.uk is being finalised.

The aim is to provide information and support to parents and families whose children go missing regularly and are involved in drugs, alcohol abuse and behaviour issues.

Approximately 70,000 children go missing per year throughout the UK so it is a problem which affects many families.

The site provides a parents forum, a directory of useful contacts and soon it will have a number for missing kids to text so that a message can be posted on the board to let their parents know they are ok.

Please help to spread the word by printing off a flyer from here and displaying it in eg your local school / youth club / library / post office. Alternatively, you can add a link to the website with this image (shown above)

Thank you.

For now and for the rest of October, things are going to get a little pinker round here.

Over in the States, October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month and Pink for October tries to get as many websites “going pink” as part of this.

Given that Breast Cancer is an international problem, we thought we’d chip in. For more information, have a look at the Pink for October site