It is now just one month to the biggest community gathering in Hackney for many years; Saturday 5 June and the Celebrate Hackney event, to be held at Stoke Newington School from 10.30am to 4.30pm!

We have over 50 speakers from community groups, in 15 workshops, on greening Hackney, lifelong learning, miscarriages of justice (Celia Stubbs from the Blair Peach campaign will be joining campaigns for Sam Hallam), the arts in Hackney (Roland Muldoon will have lots to say!), defending public services, new initiative to make Hackney a ‘sanctuary borough’ for migrants, Gay Pride, young people, older people, peace groups, faith groups, trade union groups.

It is going to be fantastic. There are also 30 information stalls from local groups and a further four food stalls (Thai, Turkish, Caribbean and Vegan). There will also be children’s activities. We will have a mini-film festival, entertainment from local performers and a ‘question time’ with local politicians (your chance to have your say after the elections).

For more details visit: http://www.hackneyunites.org.uk/

The event is co-ordinated by Hackney Unites, but it has grown so much bigger than we could dare to hope that we now need to ask for help to make it the success it deserves to be.

To publicise the event we are producing a tabloid paper featuring the groups who are involved, and the work they do. We are having 50,000 printed, but we need help to distribute them. We are organising a distribution meeting on 12 May, between 7pm, and 8.30pm, at the Trinity Centre, Beechwood Road , Dalston , E8 3DY .

The aim of the meeting will be to organise the distribution of the tabloid paper. We are asking you to take just 300 papers to distribute door-to-door in the streets near where you live.

We will be organising distribution on a ward-by-ward basis and encouraging teams of volunteers to work together to make it less of a chore and to maximise coverage, so please bring some friends along!

If you can help, please let us know. You can either collect papers from the Trinity Centre on 12 May (the parking restrictions are not in place after 6pm) or we can deliver them to your door. Please let us know what you can do, and how many papers you can take.

Also, if you are able to take a number of papers for display in a community centre, or are able to display them at forthcoming events, then please let us know.

If you want attend on 5 June, can I also ask you to sign up to attend the event. While it is free, we need to be able to estimate numbers (for caterers and stewarding)

http://celebratehackney.eventbrite.com/

If you are on facebook, then please also sign up the event at http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=120552934622314
(and then invite your friends to attend so that people get to hear of the day).

If you have a blog, please give us a plug.

We have some great posters for the Celebrate Hackney event, if you could get them stuck up somewhere, please let us know.

Finally, please forward this email to people who you think would be interested in Hackney Unites, the tabloid, and the Celebrate Hackney event.

Thank you to everyone for your help and assistance.

John Page