Le Big Lunch tunes

Check out the link above to listen to a range of French music put together for Le Big Lunch

Le Big Lunch Big Quiz – un grand succès !

So, Tuesday 30th April, saw the latest installment in the Queens Road Big Lunch Quiz series (our 4th I think), Le Big Lunch Big Quiz.

Due to some marvellous artwork on the posters and flyers from Dewi Thomas and some hard work leaflet dropping and publicising the event via Pinto Lounge, on social media and by word of mouth, we were almost over-subscribed but we managed to squeeze everyone in, a lovely problem to have.

It was great to see multiple teams from Queens Road but also some local Banbury teams who had seen the flyers in Pinto Lounge and of course our friends from the Banbury Twitterati who always support us.

Antony Goodman, our ever-present quiz master, challenged both himself and us all by putting together 6 rounds of French-flavoured brain teasers which included food, drink, film, music, pictures, logos, mash ups and historical events – one to remember: the last place the English gave up when leaving France to the French was…… CALAIS, so a bit like we do today then !

Well, after 6 challenging rounds with 5 different round winners the results were announced and “QuizTeamAguilera” were pronounced winners, just 8 points ahead of last year’s victors.

Embarrassingly that was the team which 2 of the organising team were in (including me !) but we humbly accepted victory and put ourselves up f0r being knocked off our perch at next year’s event – as if everyone wants to do it all again, Becky the Manager of Pinto Lounge has offered her support to us and given we raised £201 after costs from the event towards the funds for Le Big lunch Street Party, we no doubt will be looking to hold a Queens Road Big Lunch Big Quiz in 2014 !

Thanks again to everyone who came along, donated time, effort and resources to make it such a successful and fun evening.

Here’s to the next event !

Lots & lots of lots

At the street party meeting this evening we reviewed the lots for the auction and they are plentiful and varied. I’ll post a full list later next week so that you can start working out what you are going to bid for, but in the meantime, here are a couple of examples:

Babysitting, painting & decorating or plastering, meal for up to 6 cooked in your own home, original painting, original photograph, bottle of champagne, 1 to 1 art tuition.

Thinking caps on and dig deep 🙂

Going going gone!!

With less than a month to go we are intensifying activities to get everything ready for the street party.

One of the main elements of our Jubilee Street Party will be an auction of Promises & Goods so we are trying to get folks to donate their skills or items.

If you have anything to offer (suggestions below) please contact John Haywood at No.1 email a.j.haywood@hotmail.co.uk
Tel 01295 257587

Community Meeting Feedback

Hi everyone, hope you are having a good weekend.

As many of you will know, we held the first community meeting of the year at the Church House last night.

We had a relatively small number of attendees but everyone was enthusiastic, vocal and committed to making decisions related to the Queens Road community.

We had a few key areas to discuss, of course the Big Lunch Street Party but also the idea of a community website, other social activities & social action as a community and gathering views and feedback on what we have done so far.

The key points were as follows:

1. Everyone was supportive of the Big Lunch Street Party and it was agreed that we will increase the maximum number of attendees to 400 (realistically 350 but with some flexibility) and will budget accordingly. This will enable residents to invite a limited number of additional guests – more details to follow.

We are going to hold an organising meeting to get into more details in the next couple of weeks but we have one very important question we need your input on:

The national date for the Big Lunch in 2011 has been pulled forward to Sunday 5th June BUT it is the last day of the half term holiday and this poses a problem for some residents who have already booked holidays with their families, so we have suggested that we could move our Big Lunch to Sunday 12th June.

PLEASE EMAIL ME BACK TO ADVISE IF YOU WISH US TO ABSOLUTELY STICK WITH 5TH JUNE OR IF YOU WOULD BE HAPPY TO PUSH THE QUEENS ROAD BIG LUNCH BACK TO 12TH JUNE.

2. Community website – after a lively discussion lead by Nicholas from No. 84 it was agreed by those present that the building of a community website for Queens Road was a positive development for our community and it would be a way to facilitate and enhance the personal interactions we have between friends and neighbours.

The website would be somewhere we could store and search the Skills Register information, host a Forum for discussions between residents, give information about forthcoming events, provide local history / information on Queens Road and the area. It would be secure and User ID password protected to make key information available only to registered users. It would be simple and hopefully as low cost as possible.

Whilst we accept that we may need some professional help to produce this and some sponsorship to finance this, we agreed to set up a small team to take this idea away to try to develop it further using skills we already have in Queens Road. Antony Goodman and Nick Wood have agreed to work on this. Please could you email me if you have any relevant skills and would be prepared to help develop / build this site.

3. Other social activities / social action – again, a lively discussion was had about us all helping each other more as an organised community (and particularly those in specific need at specific times) – and most felt the website might help us quickly organise ourselves to, for instance, clear snow off pavements or to organise the alleyway clean ups etc. We also agreed that we should do more social activities.

– A Christmas Party was seen not to be necessary as there are already so many events around Christmas but a party of some sort in January might be welcome to cheer everyone up.
– All thought that an Easter Picnic with Easter Egg Hunt in the park would be a great event for adults and children alike
– We felt that we should try to use / support Woodgreen Leisure Centre / Swimming Pool more as it is a hard fought for resource and so we had the idea of hiring out the pool area for a Pool Party / Picnic / BBQ and also we have had discussions with WLC management about holding a joint car boot sale with them to raise funds
– A quiz night was again discussed and agreed as a good event for us to hold again

4. Other items discussed during the evening were the putting up of a notice board somewhere in the street for those people to access information “offline”; the previous ideas for a book club and a babysitting circle suggested on the washing line of wants were concurred by attendees and we also welcomed Andrew, a new resident who has moved into No73 with his fiancée Tamsin – please welcome them if you see them !!

Hope this information is useful to you, hopefully when the website is up and running we will be able to host this type of update on that !

If you have any other ideas regardless if you were at the meeting or not, please feel free to email them to me.

Thanks !
Tim
No.82

The Queens Road, Banbury, Big Lunch Street Party Organising Team

Email: BigLunchQueensRd@aol.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/BigLunchQnsRd
Blog: http://www.biglunchqueensroad.wordpress.com
Facebook Group: Queens Road Big Lunch Party

Annual crisis of confidence

Well, it is that time of year again when I start to get a wobble on. This Friday is the first meeting of the year for The Queens Road Big Lunch Street Party and as per last year I am a bit uncertain as to whether I am going to be stood in an empty room talking to myself.

Last year I was very close to stepping away from the organisation of the QR Big Lunch and to chalk it up as a one year wonder as during the winter I struggled to generate much interest and I’d also had a couple of bad experiences with a group of young boys hurling abuse at me for being bigger than the average, kids from a community I was prepared to put myself out for and it kind of questioned my faith in what I was doing.

I challenged my friends and neighbours to prove me wrong and to restore my faith in human nature by turning up, being enthusiastic and participating in the organisation and running of the 2010 Big Lunch which they did in spades – they were the most fantastic bunch of people and we had an amazing time in the process of organising the street party – lots of regular meetings and hard work but what a sense of community spirit – drinks and nibbles, laughs and gossip – even a BBQ one night – we had a right good time and that was before the Street Party even happened!!

That was something else and everyone of the approx 250 people seemed to have a great day – all ages, adults and children, all backgrounds and nationalities – it truly was what the Big Lunch call the human warming effect.

And in the immediate aftermath everyone says “let’s do it all again next year” and then for a few months things go cold – literally and figuratively as the winter months roll by and we all focus on our day to day lives, Christmas and New Year and then little by little thoughts turn to the Spring and the Summer and normally July and the Queens Road Big Lunch. However, this year the Big Lunch has been pulled forward to 5th June and so preparations need to start in February.

Hence the community meeting this Friday 11th at 7pm at the Church House – this time though it is not just about the street party; sure a big part of the agenda is about that but a big part is also to get input about what all this might lead to – we have ideas about a website, about other social action / social activities and need to get direction from you, the good people of Queens Road as to how we move forward – do we stick with the annual jamboree in the street, if that is enough, or do we make something more of the heat of human warming generated in Queens Rd.

When 7pm comes on Friday and I’m in that room I hope to get my answer…..

On your marks, get set, GO !!

Well, what can I say, my fears were unfounded and we had great support on Friday night’s first meeting with 18 people in attendance. Everyone was of the opinion that The Queens Road Big Lunch 2010 was a great idea and that we should make it bigger and better than last year.

Some key messages:

• Whilst we have many nationalities in the street, an aspect picked upon by the media last year, we shouldn’t make this the main focus of the party – if people wish to dress up, cook food and decorate in ways which represent their nationality or culture then fine, but it is up to each person to do so – this will NOT be a formal theme; Derrick (no28) and Lucy (37a) are covering media liaison;
• We will raise money for charity from the raffle and anything also left over after necessary costs will be added to that amount and this year it will be donated to BYHP (Banbury Young Homeless Project) http://www.byhp.org.uk/index.htm Cathy at 61 will be the Charity Liaison person so any relevant ideas to her please;
• The way we organise the street will be better defined once we know how many people and what events we are having but we feel that bring everyone physically closer together (hopefully not huddling under gazebos to avoid the rain) will bring us closer together as a community;
• Music and entertainment is very much a favoured aspect, and Antony at number 51 has taken the lead in this area; any budding musicians, singers, dancers – please let Antony know;
• Items such as the bouncy castle, fire engine, face painting (and hair spraying!), childrens competition, book exchange and raffle will be back this year and thinking caps are on for more ideas; if you have anything to donate as raffle prizes or know companies who may support please let Tim at 82 know;
• Food is a primary consideration and amongst the ideas are an ice cream stand, produce exchange, “bring and share” table – duly labelled with ingredients so people know what they’re eating !! Kate at 47 and Tracey at 86 have kindly offered to cover all aspects of food and drink so more to come from them;
• We believe that the administrative formalities will be a little easier this year, having made the contacts and knowing how it works more than we did last year – however we are highly likely to incur costs in this area and so are asking for a minimum donation of £10 per household to contribute towards the costs of the fun !! John at No1 is going to help with Fundraising.
•  There are two be two main competitions – one for the street’s Best Dressed House and so get your thinking caps on for creative ideas and also let’s all get our brooms out to give the street a good spring clean to get it ready well in advance of the Big Lunch, and one for the children to dress up and come in fancy dress / costumes etc, so get sewing and sticking !!
• Really important aspects of the planing and organisation, such as Council Liaison, Environmental / Health & Safety and Parking and Street Logistics have been picked up by Jon (no 26) Clare (no 32) and Roger (no 19) respectively and in her absence Roger co-opted Sue also of No19 to be the Treasurer for this year, which is a really important role, so please give your contributions to Sue (maybe best to put them into an envelope and pop them through the door as she is on crutches at present !) So thanks to you all !

Another major area to work on is getting the interest started, maintained and ensuring everyone is being made aware of what is going on – Marlene (no8), Lucy (no2), Claire (no26) and Lucy (37a) are the main residents communication team but I also pitched in with Marlene and Lucy this am to knock doors and get posters up in windows. We have had a good initial response and posters are up in windows already so we are really off and running ! If you’ve not been spoken to yet please leave a comment, send an email to BiglunchQueensRd@aol.com or contact us via the Twitter page  There will also be a Facebook group soon…watch this space.

That’s all for now – if I’ve forgotten anyone / thing, then my apologies ! Next organising team meeting on Thursday 29th April at 7.30pm at No51 (Antony & Charlotte’s house) – Have a good week.

The Hard Work Starts Here !

Have sorted the venue and time for the 1st meeting for this year’s Queens Road Big Lunch Street Party organisation – The Church House function room FRI 16TH APRIL 7.30PM – Please come along and offer your ideas and support for this year’s street party !! Tell your friends and neighbours – lets get this off the ground !! And we can have a drink !!

Will It Won’t It ?

Well – following multiple emails and some discussions the recent flyer circulated by Clare and Rosie managed to generate some increased interest in the possibility of Queens Road, Banbury holding a Big Lunch Street Party. A number of people have contacted me as a result and although I personally still have a huge doubt over whether enough people will be able / willing to give enough time to organise everything required to make it happen, I’ve opened my mind again to the possibility of the event happening for a second year running on Sunday 18th July 2010.

My concern has been that knowing how much work we put into the organisation last year and the fact that Valérie and Amanda have left the street since then and I don’t have half as much spare time as last year (and I didn’t have much then) that I would be overwhelmed and left with egg on my face trying to make it happen again.
However, the green shoots of interest have started to show along with the early Spring blooms and people’s interest appears to be awakening.
So next step is to arrange a face to face meeting to review last year and to see what we want to do this year and who will do what to make it happen !

Tim

http://twitter.com/BigLunchQnsRd