Welcome!

Our website has been fairly inactive for a while - we're pleased to welcome you back to a newly active and regularly updated site. The design may get better soon, too, we hope - for now click read more for a general update on progress at FolesHillfields.

If you haven't heard from or called in on us for a while - the last few months have seen:

• A very successful first visit to the UK by our Kenyan community link partners, involving three local schools, a local choir and a South African choir, the Lord Mayor, Coventry Asian Blind Association, the West Indian Centre and an informal group of local disabled people. We hosted women's events, a re-union of last year's Year Six Linking Club, welcoming and leaving parties and an Africa Day - and welcomed a great variety of new friends and old to the offices - including a good number of Africans.
• Another busy fortnight for Coventry Peace Festival, including a Language Café event, a women's Bridge-Building Coffee Morning and a women's Inter-Faith Lunch, and a Community Garden taster afternoon. Some of us also took part in Listening Projects run by Coventry Peace House, and other innovative and exciting events across the city.
• Continuing work in our community garden, including on our new mini-allotment in Leigh Street. A small group of hardy souls were rewarded for collecting horse manure by an inspiring trip around Garden Organic at Ryton, and some even hardier souls double dug the new plot in heavy rain, ready for bumper crops next year. Broad beans are in around the plum tree outside the office, and the herb bed and our no-dig fruit'n'veg garden are both getting ready for a winter rest.
• We've had a number of opportunities recently to let people know about the work we do here. We spoke about our work at the Institute of Community Cohesion's national Practitioners Networking Meeting; we talked about our progress since winning the Award for Bridging Cultures last November at this year's awards event; we had a lovely opportunity to host and get to know Sylvia Puente from Chicago's Latino Policy Forum; and I spoke on a panel at Public Policy Exchange Community Cohesion event last Thursday.
• We've continued with regular weekly drop-in sessions for anyone and everyone - often well-attended and a great chance to strengthen relationships and make new ones - this will be pausing over the Christmas holidays, but continuing at least throughout January on Wednesday afternoons. Meanwhile, we've also been experimenting with a regular young people's drop-in session - more news soon on 2010's programme for young people!
• Finally, and sadly, we've been preparing for Aya and Mino's return to Japan this January. They have each played a hugely important role in developing and strengthening our work, and we will miss them hugely. Handing over their many tasks is no easy job, but we have been doing well with this - and we plan to lose no time in working with them as a new daughter or sister project in Nagoya, Aichi prefecture - watch this space for more.

For more about us, you could try this video hosted by the ABC Awards site - although it may not be there for long now there are winners for 2009! (Congratulations, Aik Saath!)

- Mark